Patients to be ranked for home help hours

Carers to use app in overhaul aimed at freeing up hospital beds

NEW technology will be used to rank patients in terms of their illnesses as part of a major overhaul of the home help scheme aimed at significantly reducing the demand for hospital beds.

The new system will see patients given ratings of between one and seven, depending on their needs, and allocated care based on their ranking.

A patient ranked one will qualify for a home visit from a specialist nurse, while someone rated seven will be admitted to a nursing home under the Fair Deal scheme.

Nurses and social care workers will record home visits on a smart phone app which will allow the HSE to analyse the care given to patients under the revised scheme.

Carers will check in on the app while in patients’ homes and record the type of care they have been given.

Once the new system is introduced it is expected that it will free up to 14,700 in-patient beds a year, or 40 per day.

The Government has faced severe criticism over the delays in providing home help and support to mostly elderly patients. Recent figures showed more than 7,000 people are on a waiting list for home help.

One million extra home help hours costing an additional €52m were announced in the Budget by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.

Health Minister Simon Harris and Minister for Older People Jim Daly ring-fenced €7m of the Budget funding to test the new model of home care.

The funding will be used to introduce a pilot scheme ahead of the introduction of the statutory home help systems which will come into law in 2021.

The areas where the pilot will be held have yet to be confirmed, but 230,000 hours of home support will be dedicated to the trial run.

“The range of services that will be tested during the pilot will focus on improving both cognitive and physical capacity and resilience to support people to live in their homes and in their communities,” a Department of Health spokesperson said.

“We will also trial intensive packages to support the needs of those living with dementia in their home. It will seek to examine the work of family carers.

“As part of the proposals, a dedicated governance structure will be set up to oversee the proposed scheme.”

Mr Daly recently said he was “ashamed” of the waiting list for home help hours and said he was “apologising for that on a daily basis”.

During the summer, Fianna Fail deputy leader Dara Calleary criticised Mr Daly over the backlog on the home help waiting list.

Mr Calleary accused the Government of ignoring the warnings about the strain that the backlog was putting on hospitals which were unable to discharge patients because of the lack of home care services.

“You don’t get it — you don’t understand what this is doing to patients and their families.

“You don’t join the dots on the impact it’s having on hospital services,” he said.

Mr Daly said €8m a day was being spent on home help hours. This year, €445m was allocated by the HSE to provide 17.9 million hours of home support services to 53,000 people.