652 home care cases not being met due to pressures on domiciliary care in Western Trust

Mr. Swann said workforce challenges among domiciliary care providers are having an impact.

Funding has been increased to meet the needs of the Western Trust’s ageing population, he added.

"The Western Health and Social Care Trust Trust Annual Domiciliary Care budget amounts to £46.3m. This includes an additional £1.353m allocated to meet demographic growth for the last two financial years.

The Trust currently deploys all of the Domiciliary Care resources allocated. This amounts to an average of 39,000 weekly hours of care provided to 3620 service users.

"Despite the resources deployed the Health and Social Care Trust is not able to meet all of the presenting demand for domiciliary care services.

"At present there is unmet need amounting to 652 cases assessed as requiring 5202 weekly hours. All Domiciliary Care providers advise that they are encountering workforce challenges which is the predominant factor affecting the Trust's ability to increase domiciliary care service provision,” said Mr. Swann in response to an Assembly Question from Sinn Féin MLA Ciara Ferguson.

"The Western Health and Social Care Trust has embarked on a Homecare Optimisation programme as part of Delivering Value.

"The reorganisation of domiciliary care services in 5 of the Trust's 9 geographical areas has resulted in the accommodation of 459 new or increased care packages totalling 4267 weekly hours from within existing capacity. This will be rolled out to the remaining areas in the year ahead,” he said.

Independent sector provided 82% of home care in the Western Trust