National home care budget proposal for children with life limiting conditions unveiled

In News by Denis Naughten

 

In an Oireachtas briefing co-hosted by Senator Mary Ann O’Brien and Denis Naughten TD this morning, Deputy Naughten unveiled his budget neutral plan to deliver a dedicated national home care budget for children with life limiting conditions. A plan which has been developed in conjunction with LauraLynn Ireland’s Children’s Hospice and the Jack and Jill Foundation two of the country’s leading charities in this area.

 

Currently, if a parent wishes to care for their child at home they are dependent on the funding drawn from the overall budget of their local Primary, Continuing, and Community Care (PCCC) office. The joint proposal outlined this morning seeks to establish a national home care budget for children with life limiting conditions. This would be achieved by segregating the funding currently being provided by individual PCCCs and diverting it directly to a single national officer within the HSE who would have responsibility for its disbursement.

 

Amongst other benefits (outlined in a letter from Deputy Naughten to Minister Reilly), this cost neutral proposal would ensure consistency of care for children throughout the country, drive efficiency, ensure that health professionals spend more time in the provision of front line services rather than being tied up with an advocacy role on behalf of an individual child, release expensive acute paediatric beds (costing €147k p/a), and ensure that children will not be forced to remain in hospital at Christmas, possibly their only Christmas, because the local PCCC has exhausted its budget for the current year.

 

According to Denis Naughten; “In the last 12 months the various Primary, Continuing & Community Care offices throughout the Country have spent €8.2m on the home care of children with life limiting conditions at an average cost of €47,292 per child. However, despite this spend the needs of children and families are simply not been met. As the service is totally been smothered by internal health politics leaving the likes of LauraLynn Children’s Hospice and Jack and Jill picking up the slack. An intervention which prevents these 1,400 children from having to spend their limited life’s in hospital”

 

Speaking at the special Oireachtas briefing, LauraLynn Children’s Hospice CEO Philomena Dunne, said “For us though this is about more than brutal economics. As a society we have to ask ourselves do we want to properly support those families dealing with the most difficult and the most heart-breaking of situations? In the past twelve months 146 families from all over Ireland have LauraLynn care. So the facts are demand for these services has sadly increased, funding has been cut by 20% over the past four years. We cannot allow any more of the burden of cuts to fall on these families who are already bearing too much. This proposal to the Minister highlights a real solution – there’s a Fund already available that could be centrally managed into a National Home Care Budget. It would be a life-line for families and organisations like ours who support them on their rollercoaster journey.”

 

Founder of Jack and Jill, Senator O’Brien commented; “When Deputy Naughten approached me to begin discussions around this proposal I was somewhat shocked to hear how simple and realistic his plan was to deliver a much needed national home care budget for children with life limiting conditions. My husband and I Jonathan Irwin (Jack and Jill Foundation) have been trying to achieve this for more than ten years now. Since joining the Seanad every attempt I have made to achieve this has been blocked due to budgetary constraints. However, Minister Reilly and his officials are unable to use this line to push away our call for a national budget as this proposal only involves monies already been spent by the HSE. Money that I might add which is been spent without considering the needs of the children and their families.”

 

“This is the opportune time to examine the issues that face 1,400 families in Ireland today; not only due to the upcoming budget, but also because without a new approach to home care funding many children will continue to face Christmas in hospital. I would urge Minister Reilly to act on this proposal next week as part of his Budget for 2013, and to do everything in his power to protect the most vulnerable in our society,” concluded Naughten.