Sir, – I read Prof Des O'Neill's detailed critique of the Fair Deal scheme ("'Fair Deal' is an unfair deal for older people – it must be changed", Opinion & Analysis, July 22nd) and I agree with it.
Fair Deal remains separate from the provision of home care services. Many frail elderly people do need nursing home care. However, more could stay at home, given better access to home helps, and other community services. Many older people would prefer this. The implication would be that the care needs of the average nursing home resident would increase.
We need services with a greater focus on individual patient needs, and less hiding of social problems in big institutions. Without this the big nursing homes now being built will be the next set of failed Irish institutions, taking their place in a familiar, but tragic, list alongside the laundries, reformatories, asylums and direct provision.
What is probably needed is a single needs assessment process providing access to home care, respite care, and long-term care, from a common budget. This must be centred on the individual needs of each older person, rather than the convenience of the organisations. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY STAINES,
Chairman of
Health Systems,
School of Nursing
and Human Sciences,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.
Sir, – Prof Des O’Neill’s article, following on from your own editorial (“Nursing homes – time for an upgrade”, July 17th), argues for more funding for services for older people. In neither piece is any long-term, self-sustaining source of funding for such services identified.
Prof O’Neill cites the UK’s 1999 royal commission on longer-term care; however he ignores the fact that the UK Labour government proposed in 2008 a new funding model that required people to self-fund their care for two years, along with recouping some of the cost from the person’s home, and its intention to have another royal commission in 2015, had it won the 2010 election. The issue of funding for long-term care for the elderly in the UK is far from settled.
Without a practical and ring-fenced source of funding, all the best of intentions about providing a quality service will prove impossible to deliver.
Mary Minihan’s piece on inheritance touched on the broader problem from a different angle (“Death and property: a taxing time ahead for Government TDs?”, Opinion & Analysis, July 20th). People who have accrued even a modest amount of wealth are very reticent about the State getting its hands on it. Squaring the circle of an increased need for quality care, either at home or in residential settings as we age, along with our desire to pass on our accrued wealth to the next generation, would tax the wisdom of Solomon. Solomon didn’t have to stand for election in a world where the voters are getting progressively older. – Yours, etc,
DANIEL SULLIVAN,
Marino,
Dublin 9.