Families shouldn’t be able to refuse quality care for elderly, warns FF

INVESTMENT in homecare and step-down care for elderly people needs to be ramped up – but families should not be able to refuse quality care once it is offered, according to Fianna Fáil.

The party’s health spokesman, Stephen Donnelly, said there are a number of areas where investment needs to be increased, including ensuring there is equal access to homecare supports nationwide, more rehab beds and stepdown facilities to address the issue of delayed discharges.

He said once those solutions are in place and adequately resourced it should not be the case that families can simply refuse options on the table.

A report conducted by expert Graham Knowles highlighted a number of factors behind the high numbers of delayed discharges, with people left in hospital when they have been deemed fit to leave.

Among these are a lack of joined-up planning between hospitals and other providers, Fair Deal delays caused by families not co-operating and a shortage of home-care packages and rehab beds in some parts of the country.

A working group has been convened, chaired by Minister with Responsibility for Older People Jim Daly, to drive down the numbers of people taking up acute beds unnecessarily.

There is no “silver bullet” to tackle the problem of elderly people remaining in hospitals longer than they need to, Mr Daly said yesterday.

He said there is not one simple move that would wipe out delayed discharges, but by reducing the number he believes the trolley crisis could be alleviated significantly.

In relation to Fair Deal, he said he believed most people thought the system was fair and said that people were perhaps fearful about entering into it at first.

Additional funding for homecare supports and social care will form part of the winter plan in a bid to increase the number of people being discharged.

However, there are no other measurable winter initiatives to tackle the problem because the data available was found to be so poor.

In relation to families not engaging with Fair Deal, either deliberately or for other factors, there will also be a push to ensure hospitals start speaking to families earlier in a patient’s hospital stay to determine what are the next steps for the patient.

“We definitely need better information and communications for families in relation to Fair Deal to challenge this idea that a person must stay in a hospital bed until a Fair Deal bed is in place.

“There are transitional beds and step-down facilities that are more suitable,” a source said.

There is no ‘silver bullet’ to tackle issue of elderly people staying in hospital too long