Disability care services: 24 people are waiting on home support in north Tipperary

There are 24 people waiting on disability services in north Tipperary, according to figures released at the November meeting of the Regional Health Forum West.

The forum is made up of councillors in Mid-West and western counties and the figure was given in reply to a question submitted by Clare’s Cllr Cillian Murphy who had asked if he could be provided with a breakdown of all the services offered, and the staffing levels relevant to each of those services, for each of the Community Healthcare Networks (CHN) in the Mid-West alongside the populations that each CHN covers.

The reply stated that Community Healthcare Networks are key to the expansion of services in the community as they serve as the “fundamental unit of organisation for the delivery of services” based on population need and size.

Networks service an average population of 50,000 people.

There are eight Community Healthcare Networks across the HSE Mid-West (CHO3), which includes north Tipperary, which has a population of 60,696.

He was told that Borrisokane and Nenagh had two primary care teams, with Roscrea, Templemore and Thurles also having two primary care teams. However, the HSE is awaiting the appointment of a network manager for the areas.

Cllr Murphy was further told that there were 24 people on the waiting list for home care through the disability services in north Tipperary.

The home care service for people with disabilities in the Mid-West is delivered through the provision of personal assistant hours and home support hours.

The service is delivered, in the main, by agencies / private providers on behalf of the HSE, with a small number of hours delivered by HSE healthcare support assistants.

Some 800 clients of the disability service across the Mid-West received a total of 420,095 home support hours from January to September 2022.

In north Tipperary, 135,014 hours were delivered in this time frame, also 32% of the total hours delivered in Mid-West community healthcare.

A total of 368 clients are in receipt of the services.

In relation to older person services home support services in CHO3, the HSE delivered 1.4m hours of home support services up to the end of September in 2022, with 42,438 hours delivered to 1,528 people in north Tipperary.