Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Health (i) whether there are plans to move or realign homecare services; (ii) whether any homecare teams have been stood down in the last twelve months; and (iii) whether any core or re-enablement work will move to the private sector.
(AQW 7089/16-21)
Minister of Health: (i) Under the Northern Trust’s reform and modernisation programme for its homecare services, it is reducing the number of teams that provide long term care and increasing the number of teams working in the re-ablement service.
(ii) One re-ablement team was stood down in the Mid Ulster area to enable staff to move to long term core service temporarily. This was due to recruitment difficulties. However, there has been an increase in recruitment over the past 6 months, and the re-ablement team is now in a position to provide a re-ablement service to those who meet the criteria.
(iii) During the reform process, some long term core service users for whom the Trust is unable to provide services internally, may be transferred to the independent sector to create capacity for re-ablement teams to be developed.
ENDS
Your MLA 