Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 September 2021
690. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Health his views on the Government’s policy regarding the use of congregated residential settings for care of older persons in the State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43686/21]
View answerA key principle underpinning Government policy is to support older people to live in their own home with dignity and independence for as long as possible.
In recent years there has been a shift in healthcare provision focus towards home care. Home support services are key in facilitating older people to remain at home and, with our ageing population, will become increasingly important in the future. The Government is committed to establishing a new, statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home-support services, which the Department of Health is currently developing.
Work is on-going within the Department to determine the optimal approach to the development of the new scheme within the broader context of the Sláintecare reforms and on 27 April 2021, Government gave approval to draft a General Scheme and Heads of a Bill to establish a licensing framework for home support providers. In parallel to this, work is ongoing in relation to the development of a reformed model of service delivery for home support. Within this context, funding was secured in 2021 for the HSE to progress the roll-out of interRAI as the standard assessment tool for care-needs in the community; the pilot of a reformed model of service-delivery for home-support; and the establishment of a National Office for Home Support Services.
While the new home-support scheme is under development, the Government is prioritising improving access to home-support services. As part of Budget 2021, funding for an additional 5 million hours of home-support was provided. This increased investment will contribute to meeting the Programme for Government commitment to providing equitable access to home-support services.
There will, of course, always be people whose needs are best met in a residential care setting and the Nursing Homes Support Scheme, commonly referred to as Fair Deal, is a system of financial support for people who require long-term residential care.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented challenge across our health services and none more so than in our nursing homes. The Deputy will be aware that the Nursing Homes Expert Panel was established, on foot of a NPHET recommendation, to examine the complex issues surrounding the management of COVID-19 among this particularly vulnerable cohort. The Expert Panel report, which was published in August 2020, has added further to our knowledge and learning. This report clearly outlines the key protective measures that we must ensure are in place across our nursing homes. These actions are based on learning from our own and the international experience of COVID-19. The report also recommends additional analysis and examination of the relevant public health and other data sets in order that further causal and protective factors for COVID-19 clusters are identified.
Work to progress the recommendations of the Expert Panel report, particularly those recommendations requiring a priority focus in the response to COVID-19, is ongoing across health agencies and stakeholders. The recommendations of the report are varied and complex, are both short-, medium- and longer-term in nature, and require a mix of ongoing operational response to COVID-19 and a longer-term strategic reform. Those strategic reforms are, by their nature, complex and relate to whole of system issues.
At a broader level, there has been significant and ongoing consideration of this impact since the start of the pandemic, with various examinations and development of reports with a focus on COVID-19, its impact on nursing homes and the pandemic learnings that can inform future policy, regulation and the model of care for older persons. The significant examination undertaken by the Expert Panel provides important learning and a framework for enhancing older persons services both in the short and long-term and this work is progressing.
