300 still on waiting list for home help packages

Despite an increase in funding in April, there were still 304 people waiting for home help and 189 awaiting homecare packages in Galway City and County – some of them for nearly ten months.

The longest waiting time for home help is 290 days and 288 days for a homecare package in Galway.

The executive chairman of the Regional Health Forum West, Tony Canavan, said it was “as clear as can be” that not enough hours were being provided to allow older and infirm people to be cared for in their own homes.

In 2016 the HSE spent considerably less on the service, he stressed. The overall spend on home support would be €40 million across Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, which was a 12% increase on last year.

In April, the service was given a boost in order to speed up discharges from Galway hospitals.

Since additional resources were released, all new applicants prioritised as most in need on the waiting list can have two-and-a-quarter hours of homecare a week.

“We’re dividing hours into fractions to try to extend it across the greatest number of patients possible,” he told the Forum.

Some clients received their home help in a week or two after approval. In other cases, particularly in rural areas, that delay ran to ten months. This could be due to a difficulty recruiting home help staff.

A “prioritisation tool” was introduced in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon to standardise home help hours “ensuring fairness and equity throughout the region”.

That prioritisation was based on clinical merit, Mr Canavan stressed.

“Clients are waitlisted or allocated homecare based on their assessment using the prioritisation took by a homecare forum with clinical and social care professional representation.

“Where home help hours are being implemented after approval, they are put in place straight away unless agency staff are not available and difficult to source but generally the homecare can take from one to three weeks to be put in place.”

Forum chairperson Mary Hoade said she intended to make the whole issue of home help a priority during her term as head of the body.

She believed this was the way forward in order to relieve pressure on the two hospitals.