In line with Sláintecare, the Enhanced Community Care (ECC) Programme’s objective is to deliver increased levels of health care with service delivery reoriented towards general practice, primary care and community-based services, and to implement an end-to-end care pathway that will care for people at home and over time prevent referrals and admissions to acute hospitals where it is safe and appropriate to do so and enable a “home first” approach.
Significant funding in recent years, including provision of €195million in Budget 2023 is enabling recruitment of an additional 3,500 staff to the ECC, with 2,641 WTE already recruited. 94 Community Healthcare Networks and 47 Community Specialist Teams for Older Persons, and for Chronic Disease Management are already operational, and providing integrated care services to clients across the country.
Reporting on ECC Programme Activity, Impacts and Outcomes across the system has commenced with performance targets set for each ECC team to the end of 2023 and throughout 2024. In the year to date there were 22,266 patient contacts by Community Specialist Teams for Older People, demonstrating the level of activity and care being provided in the community. Between January and April 2023, 167,494 patients were reviewed by their GP as part of the Chronic Disease Management Programme, with 28,362 patient contacts by Chronic Disease Community Specialist Teams from January to April inclusive.
There is no refusal by the Department to provide the necessary funding to support systems required to support the Enhanced Community Care Programme (ECC) programme. Whilst a ‘fully functioning electronic health record system’ is critical for supporting better, safer, more integrated care, such an undertaking is a long-term investment that will not address the needs of the ECC programme in the shorter term. For this reason, several options are being considered as to the type of digital solution that is most appropriate and that can be deployed in the shorter term, to ensure the work of the ECC teams is supported, is impactful for patients and that we can demonstrate the value of this investment.
