Home care ‘fair deal’ pushed back to 2022

Minister of State for Older People Mary Butler has said the introduction of a scheme to allow people to stay at home is now a priority for her and has promised it will be delivered by 2022.

A long-awaited 'fair deal' scheme for homecare has been delayed until 2022 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A statutory homecare scheme was first promised by the Government as far back as 2018, however, the IT system and a new assessment process have yet to be developed to allow for its rollout.

Minister of State for Older People Mary Butler has said the introduction of a scheme to allow people to stay at home is now a priority for her and has promised it will be delivered by 2022.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner Ms Butler said she is "very conscious" of many elderly people who are currently living alone "who don't need clinical support, but need some kind of support from a mental health perspective or from a loneliness or an isolation point of view".

"It keeps me awake at night. I have to say, it's a huge responsibility. If you talk to any order person, all they want to do is stay at home safely and securely with the correct wraparound supports."

She said funding was made available as part of Budget 2021 to introduce a new single assessment process for those requiring home care which is necessary to introduce the statutory scheme.

"I got the funding for 108 assessors, which will be brought online in 2021. We're starting off in quarter one of next year with four pilot programmes throughout the country in relation to assessment of need."

She said funding has also been allocated for a new IT system as this is "practically non-existent" at the moment.

"Say for example you have an elderly parent at home and they have home care support, they might go for respite or they might go to a nursing home, or they might go to an acute hospital. That's not been identified in data.

"So these are the two key enablers and we got the funding for both in the budget. In order for us to get a statutory homecare scheme in 2022 these two have to happen in 2021," she said.

The introduction of a statutory scheme for homecare had been promised for next year under the Sláintecare Action Plan, however, this target will now be missed by a year.

Ms Butler said: "Covid has had a huge impact on a lot of things this year. But the only thing I can say is when I came into office on the first of July it was the first thing I spoke about."

Minister Mary Butler

She spoke about how an extra 5m homecare hours have been provided under Budget 2021 to help people to remain in their communities.

Home and Community Care Ireland (HCCI), which represents those providing homecare, has called for consultation with stakeholders to ensure the best possible scheme for carers and older people can be rolled out from the start.

Joseph Musgrave, HCCI chief executive, said an "imaginative" approach is needed including the use of technology interventions, such as smart sensors.

"We basically want home care to be much more individualised and adaptable to a person's needs." he said.

Mr Musgrave said the current system does not allow for any flexibility as carers cannot stray from a written plan containing a list of jobs that must be ticked off each day, even if other forms of assistance might be more beneficial to the older person on a given day.

"That type of home care needs to go. All of those tasks still need to be fulfilled, but I think we need to give more latitude to both the client and carers with what needs to be done on a given day," he said.

Ms Butler said that legislation relating to farmers and those with small businesses who want to avail of the current fair deal scheme for nursing homes will be brought forward in the first quarter of next year.

The changes would see the introduction of a cap on farm contributions taken by the State to fund care costs.