Written Answers. - Residential Placements for Mentally Handicapped.
Ivor Callely
Question:
87
Mr. Callely
asked the
Minister for Health
the total number of people with a handicap awaiting residential placement in the Eastern Health Board area; the funds, if any, which will be made available to assist in suitable placement of such persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
From information currently available within the Eastern Health Board region approximately 600 residential places are required to meet the needs of people with a mental handicap awaiting services. What is not clear, however, from the information available to my Department is the proportion of those on waiting lists for residential care who require immediate placement and the level of care which they require, those who with the provision of other services such as day care or home support services, may not immediately require residential placement and those who at some stage in the future will require residential care.
Agreement has recently been reached between my Department and statutory and voluntary agencies providing services to people with mental handicap on the adoption of an information system which will be set up in the coming months. This system will provide information, on an ongoing basis, on the numbers of people with a mental handicap in each region, the number of services and awaiting services, their current and future needs and the level of support which is required to meet those needs.
I would like to inform the Deputy that an additional £8.5 million has been made available in 1993 for the development of services for people with a mental handicap. Of the additional funding, £4 million has been allocated to the health board regions from which £1.750 million has been allocated to the eastern region. This is in addition to the £2.650 million made available to the region last year for the development of services for people with a mental handicap which is being repeated in 1993.
The guidelines issued to the eastern region in relation to the expenditure of this additional funding proposed that additional emergency, residential (including respite care) and day care places be provided and that the home support services be extended. Provision was also made in respect of the commissioning of additional facilities in the Daughters of Charity Services, Navan Road and towards the improvement of services in St. Ita's Hospital, Portrane. The precise services to be provided in the eastern region have been agreed by the Regional Mental Handicap Planning Committee and are now being examined in my Department.
A further £2 million was made available to strengthen the budgets of direct funded mental handicap agencies and to meet essential service needs. As many of these agencies provide services in more than one health board area, it is not possible to say at this stage how much of the additional money is going to each area. A high percentage, however, would have been used in the Eastern Health Board area.
Provision has also been made for the capital investment necessary to support the initiatives which will be put in place this year. The allocation of the £2.5 million capital funding made available in the budget will be directly related to the service developments agreed by the Regional Mental Handicap Co-ordinating Committees and approved by my Department.
