Reilly plans to establish intermediate care facilities
He wants to establish intermediate care facilities where people can go after they have been discharged from acute hospitals.
Dr Reilly said people from the community could also be assessed in the care facilities, to see if they needed long-term care.
“We are doing a full review of how we assess people for care. I want to bring in intermediate care facilities so that people can convalesce and be assessed in a far calmer environment than the acute medical hospital.”
Dr Reilly believes that people are going into nursing homes far too early and too many people were involved in the assessment process.
He pointed out that people were living twice as long in nursing homes since the support scheme, a Fair Deal, was introduced in 2009.
He said money from the care facilities would come from Fair Deal and the Special Delivery Unit.
“I think everybody should pass through a facility where their needs could be better assessed and best package of care provided, always with an emphasis on trying to support them at home and support their families,” he said.
Dr Reilly wants to ensure that there were several public facilities where patients could be assessed.
However, he would not be opposed to asking private nursing homes to provide contracted beds and therapies where people could be moved for assessment once their acute treatment ended.
Dr Reilly dismissed concern expressed by the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation that taking €750 million out of the health service this year would put patients at risk.
“It will be more difficult. It will require different working practices and I have made that very clear from the word go,” he said.
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