A high-level advisory body will next month recommend that the Government introduce a major extension to the level of tax relief provided to families paying for nursing home care for their relatives. Martin Wall and Carl O'Brien report.
The report of the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF) project team on care for older people will also propose that new tax-breaks should be provided for people paying for contracted nursing care for their relatives at home.
The NESF report's conclusions, seen by The Irish Times, will be considered by the Government as part of a new initiative later in the year on services for the elderly signalled by Tánaiste and Minster for Health Mary Harney.
The Tánaiste has convened a special meeting of parties involved in the provision of services for the elderly for a day-long "think-in" at Farmleigh House for next Tuesday.
The NESF team will consider its draft report at a meeting in Dublin Castle on Wednesday.
The report urges that community-based financial supports should be made more widespread, and proposes that these should focus initially on highly dependent older people in the community. The NESF group recommends that, in keeping with the provisions of the new Disability Act, 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".
It also proposes that the Department of Health should clarify the entitlement of older people to "core" community care services such as home help, meals-on-wheels, day care, respite, therapeutic/paramedic services, and sheltered housing, and that these should be expanded.
The NESF team also recommends that the remit of the Social Services Inspectorate be extended to include all care units for older people.
"The team recommends that the standards should be clear, adequate and agreed; that inspectors should be adequately trained and that there should be sanctions for non-compliance.
"Inspection findings should be publicly available. Proactive development of higher standards is also required to move care towards quality of life measures," the report states.
Meanwhile, in a presentation to the annual scientific meeting of the Irish Gerontological Society yesterday, the chairman of the project team, Prof Eamon O'Shea of NUI Galway, called for the establishment of a comprehensive State system which would provide access for all older people to at least one year's residential care.
He said houses should only be used to pay for the care of the elderly after the person concerned and their next of kin have died. He recommended this system be funded through a social insurance scheme.
Prof O'Shea said there was no evidence families wanted to drop out of care for elderly relatives. However, families needed encouragement in this area.
He suggested that, under new comprehensive State services for the elderly, there should be improvements in the level and availability of home care grants.
Prof O'Shea said there should also be "significant investment in community care facilities with assessment and rehabilitation services and beds extended". He said there should be common financial assessment for public and private settings and that a "front-end residential care protection scheme" be introduced.
He suggested that, under such a scheme, elderly people should have access to at least one year in a State-funded residential facility before the issue of co-payments by the older person or their family was considered.
Prof O'Shea proposed that there could be a "posthumous asset-based, cost-sharing scheme" for long-stay residents.