Written Answers - Centre for Independent Living.
Brian O'Shea
Question:
372
Mr. O'Shea
asked the
Minister for Health and Children
his views on the Centre for Independent Living submission Beyond the Social Model - Actions not Words, which is the Centre for Independent Living Strategic Plan 2001-2006 and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[12348/01]
The Centre for Independent Living has recently published its five year strategic plan Beyond the Social Model – Actions not Words which sets out the organisation's work programme for 2001-2006. The plan focuses on human rights and equality and aims to develop strategies and mechanisms to ensure that positive outcomes are obtained for all people with disabilities. The work of the independent living movement, as it relates to the health sector, is in the provision of personal assistance services. There are currently 26 Centre for Independent Living branches providing personal assistance services throughout Ireland. The Independent Living Network has recently been established to act as an umbrella organisation for all the centres for independent living.
Health boards provide a range of support services, either directly themselves or by funding a non-statutory organisation, such as a Centre for Independent Living, to provide the service on their behalf, to enable people with physical and sensory disabilities to live as independently as possible in the community. This range of services includes respite care, day care and home support services which includes home helps, home care attendants and personal assistant services. The provision of a service is most appropriately based on the individual's needs, which may not always be met by a personal assistance service. My policy is, therefore, to develop the range of services as a whole in accordance with the amount of funding allocated for the development of services for people with physical and sensory disabilities and having particular regard to the desirability of taking an equitable approach in addressing the needs of all people with disability who require various levels of support. The amount allocated by an individual health board in any year is decided in the context of local needs and in consultation with the regional co-ordinating committee for physical and sensory disability services. Voluntary sector service providers and consumers are represented on the co-ordinating committees.
Since this Government took office, additional funding totalling just over £107 million has been allocated for the maintenance and development of services, including personal assistance services, to people with physical and sensory disabilities. In the budget, an additional £12 million this year, rising to £24 million in the year 2002, was announced for the development of services to people with physical and sensory disabilities. I decided that of this, £5 million, rising to £10 million in the year 2002, is to be targeted at home supports, including £2.5 million with a full year cost of £6 million for personal assistance services. This means that over the next two years, funding is being provided for an additional 312 personal assistants, to provide a service to approximately 230 clients. Including the £10.5 million already invested in these services since 1997, a total of £20.5 million ongoing funding is being made available for the home support services, including personal assistance services. I believe that this level of funding is indicative of the Government's ongoing commitment to the development of the broad range of home support services which are required to enable people with physical disabilities to live as independently as possible and also to provide relief to a significant number of carers.
The Centre for Independent Living has campaigned in the past for the establishment of an independent living fund and in their strategic plan they are proposing a direct payment scheme to allow people with disabilities to pay for their personal assistant service directly. The independent living fund or direct payment scheme is no more than a particular model for funding a personal assistance – PA – service. The important thing is that the service itself be provided to those needing it. A properly structured PA service needs to have a formal assessment procedure to assess the level of dependency of the individual with a disability and the suitability of the person to manage a PA. This might be done by the health boards as part of a structure for assessing the precise service needs of each individual with a physical or sensory disability, with perhaps a further assessment carried out jointly with the agency providing the PA service to the health board. It is envisaged that the health boards would broker the service, contracting with one or more service providers in each board's area, who would hire and pay the personal assistant. A working group will be established later this year to fully assess the home support, including personal assistant services.
A working group chaired by a representative from the Centre for Independent Living and representative of a number of non-statutory organisations, independent leaders and FÁS was established in 1998 to develop a generic personal assistant training course. The FÁS national traineeship unit, in conjunction with the city centre training centre, have established a personal assistant traineeship steering group to bring this work forward. Officials from my Department have recently been invited to serve as representatives on this steering group and will be attending the next meeting.
Officials from my Department have met with their counterparts from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to discuss the mainstreaming of the personal assistance services, currently being provided by means of the FÁS community employment scheme and discussions on this matter are ongoing.
Finally, officials from my Department have organised to meet with representatives from the Independent Living Network later this month, to discuss a number of issues, including the organisational structures for the centres for independent living.
