Minister for Health Mary Harney yesterday said as many as 5,000 older people who are in nursing homes could be cared for in their own homes with appropriate support.
Ms Harney said she was examining measures to increase support for older people in the home which would include substantial increases in home care packages and availability of home help.
She was speaking at a plenary session of the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF), where the findings of a draft report on care for older people was presented. The study, Care for Older People, proposes that tax-breaks should be provided for people paying for contracted nursing care for their relatives at home
It also urges that community-based financial supports should be made more widespread, which should focus initially on highly dependent older people in the community.
It also recommends that older people should have a right to an assessment of their needs. It suggests there should be a move towards a unified assessment process of establishing people's needs for services. Eligibility arrangements for services that would allow a person to remain independent for longer, such as home help, meals-on-wheels, day care and therapeutic services, should be clarified.
The report describes the State's investment incentives for nursing home care as "perverse", some of which was "unnecessary, not wanted and inappropriate".
It adds: "For many older people, inappropriate or unnecessary admission to acute or long-stay residential care could have been avoided or delayed by greater development of community services and use of preventative and proactive approaches."
Ms Harney also said long-term residential care, or nursing homes, would always be needed for higher dependency patients. She said eligibility for subvention rates were "ridiculous" for nursing home care.
Age Action Ireland yesterday welcomed the report's findings, and the Minister's comments.
"Any emphasis on home care has to be welcomed because all the evidence is, and all the reports have said, that older people wish to stay at home for as long as they can," said Paul Murray of Age Action Ireland.
"We badly need increased subvention rates and an altering of thresholds to ensure people can benefit from them," he added.
