Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 July 2015
541. Deputy Tom Fleming asked the Minister for Health his views on a recent study revealing that a far higher proportion of Ireland's elderly population live in long-term nursing homes than the European average; his plans to liaise with other Departments to examine the economics of the provision of services and financial support for those elderly persons who are well enough to stay at home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28442/15]
View answerGovernment policy is and will continue to be to prioritise facilitating older people to remain in their own homes and communities for as long as possible, and ensuring that appropriate residential care is available when it is needed.
The HSE provides a range of community-based services aimed at ensuring older people receive safe, timely and appropriate care and treatment at the lowest level of complexity, and as close to home as possible.
In its National Service Plan (NSP) for 2015 the HSE stated that it will continue to progress the strategic realignment of services to provide home care and community support services in order to maximise the potential of older people in their own homes and communities. The levels of home supports planned for in the NSP are:
- 10.3 million hours of home help service supporting 50,000 people - this is same level of service as 2014.
- 13,800 people in receipt of a home care packages at any one time - this includes an additional 600 people supported under the delayed discharges initiative.
- 190 people in receipt of an intensive home care package at any one time - these packages were introduced for the first time in 2014 for people with more complex care needs.
It would be of great concern to me if we were placing more people in residential care than happens in other comparable countries, but I do not think that this is in fact the case. The proportion of older people in residential care is a constantly changing one, and international comparison can be quite problematic because of differences in models of care and in definition of what constitutes long term residential care etc. However, in Ireland we generally have somewhere between 4% to 4.5% of those aged over 65 in residential care, and this is about average for other countries in the OECD.
Notwithstanding this, I would hope to reduce this number further. The Review of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme, as well as considering the historical and future operation of the Scheme itself, will consider how community and other services should be developed in order to facilitate more older people to stay at home for longer, and towards this end it identifies the services that should be prioritised into the future as resources allow. These include home care, better linkages between acute and community services, short stay beds, the use of assistive technology and consideration of new residential models on a collaborative basis by the Departments of Health and Environment and Local Government. The Review is almost complete and will be published as soon as possible.
