HSE under fire over delays to care data
The HSE’s commitment to public accountability has been called into question by a support network for family carers whose request for data on home care waiting lists was met with delays and piecemeal responses.
Care Alliance Ireland (CAI) sought information on the average waiting time to access home care in each of the nine HSE regions and for the difference between the number of hours of home care people were assessed as needing, compared to the number of hours they actually got.
Despite submitting freedom of information queries to all nine regions, just three provided the full data requested to CAI.
It showed non-priority clients wait, on average, over three months for home care, but with far longer waits in some regions, up to two years in one area for low priority clients.
The average gap between assessed need and actual provision was 15%, but only four regions provided data in this respect.
In light of the piecemeal information and delays, CAI said it was their view that some of the responses were “not in keeping” with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act.
For us, this raises questions about public accountability, transparency, and lack of willingness to engage with civic not-for-profit organisations in areas of legitimate public interest,” CAI said in a statement.
The author of the report, Liam O’Sullivan, executive director of CAI, said around 6,000 people are waiting for home care and it was important to know how long they are waiting and whether they will get the support required.
The HSE said that, at any given time, 52,000 people are in receipt of home support.
The HSE said the numbers on the waiting list “reflect a point in time and people who are on the waiting list are reviewed, as funding becomes available, to ensure that individual cases continue to be dealt with on a priority basis”.
CAI sought the information from the HSE in preparing a briefing paper, published today, on the current level of provision of publicly funded home care in Ireland. The paper is in the context of the Government currently considering plans for a new statutory scheme for home care services.
CAI acknowledges that the level of resourcing of home care has risen significantly since 2013, but says there needs to be a 3%+ increase in provision annually just to stand still.
CAI estimates that “a deficit in provision” of between 1.5m and 4m hours in 2018 and 2019.
The HSE said the budget for home care rose from €306m in 2014 to almost €420m in 2018.
The CAI report calls for additional resourcing of home care and for the Department of Health to prioritise its review of the home care scheme in 2019.
In June, Jim Daly, the minister of state with responsibility for older people, said he expected it would be two to three years before the new scheme, a Fair Deal-type scheme for people in their own homes, was up and running.
Under Fair Deal, the State can claim back 22.5% of the value of a person’s home for the first three years (7.5% per year) they spend in a nursing home.
