I propose to take Questions Nos. 50 and 96 together.
Home care is a key part of the supports we offer to older people, and, with our ageing population, will become increasingly important into the future, as we are committed to facilitating people to remain at home and in their communities for as long as possible.
The Department is currently engaged in a detailed process to develop plans for a new statutory scheme and system of regulation for home care services. While this is under development, both the Department and HSE keep these services under ongoing review and are continuing efforts to incrementally improve the existing home care services. As detailed in its National Service Plan, the HSE has begun work on streamlining home care services by moving towards a single funded home support service. This brings together the funding for home help and standard home care packages which will operate as a single home support service from 2018 onwards. This new approach will provide significant benefits for the service users, the public and the health system including:
- making the services easier to understand;
- streamlining the application processes resulting in only one application and decision being required for home support services for older people; and
- facilitating service users to move to changed levels of services as their assessed needs change, without the need for an additional application process.
Home support services are a particular area of focus in Budget 2018, with an additional €18.25m allocated. The additional resources made available in 2018 bring the total budget for the direct provision of home support services to €408m. The HSE’s National Service Plan provides for a target of some 17.094m home support hours to be provided to 50,500 people. This compares with the projected 16.34m hours delivered to 50,000 people last year, home help and home hours combined. This is an increase of 754,000 hours to 500 more people. In addition 235 intensive home care packages will provide 360,000 home support hours for people with complex needs.
Despite this significant level of service provision, the demand for Home Care continues to grow. It is important to note that the allocation of funding for home care across the system, though significant, is finite and services must therefore be delivered within the funding available. In that context, I acknowledge that in some cases access to the service may take longer than we would like. However, I am satisfied that the HSE monitors the delivery of home care on an ongoing basis, to ensure that activity is maximised relative to individual clients’ assessed care needs within the overall available resources for home care and having regard to demand throughout the year.
