Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has admitted that bolstering the workforce will be key to addressing shortfalls in health and social care provision – including domiciliary care.
He was responding to questions raised on the floor of the Assembly on Tuesday by Newry and Armagh DUP MLA Gareth Wilson.
The Minister was quizzed hours after ABC Council agreed to summon officials from the Southern Health Trust to face-to-face meetings.
The local authority acted after one councillor revealed over 800 people were recently confirmed to be waiting on domiciliary care packages within the Trust area – something which was having a knock-on effect in other areas of provision.
Mr Wilson pressed the Minister directly on the issue, after noting the “concerning trend in the reliable and consistent fulfilment of domiciliary care packages, which affects the largely rural constituency of Newry and Armagh”.
He also flagged the “recent decision of a provider to reduce and withdraw services to elderly patients in the Markethill and surrounding areas”. This, said the DUP representative, was something which “impacted on a number of families that are now having difficulty in ensuring that their loved ones are adequately cared for at home”.
That said, Mr Wilson asked the Minister “what plans he has to enhance the provision of domiciliary care in rural areas in that constituency”.
Minister Nesbitt said he did “not have specific plans for rural areas of Newry and Armagh”.
But he added: “I have plans for the whole of Northern Ireland. I accept that some of the challenges of provision are more severe in rural areas than in urban areas. The Member will be aware that the most important thing that I wanted to do — the one that has caused me most pain not to have done yet — was the introduction of the real living wage.
“That will be incredibly important in bolstering the existing workforce and making it more attractive for new recruits.
“I have said many times that, to deliver health and social care, you need five things. You need buildings, beds, equipment and medicines, but those four things do not count unless you have the fifth, which is the workforce. I am focusing on the workforce. If we are going to shift left, community capacity will be critical.”
The Newry and Armagh MLA then asked the Minister if agreed that having a “responsive and reliable domiciliary care service in the rural community would greatly assist in reducing pressure on beds in our hospital system?”
“Absolutely,” was Mr Nesbitt’s fast reply, as he continued: “Last winter, there was a series of days in January when 400-plus people were in emergency departments having had decisions to admit, but they could not be admitted because no beds were available, but over 500 of the people occupying those beds had been deemed as being fit for discharge.
“If we can crack the issue with discharge, we will crack the issue of emergency department queues.”
Speaking to Armagh I afterwards, Mr Wilson said he had raised his concerns around the withdrawal of “some rural domiciliary cate packages locally” and “on the heels of the timely debate in ABC Council chamber of Monday night”.
He said: “I used the Topical Question facility in Stormont to directly question the Health Minister Mike Nesbitt on the issue.
“I will continue to raise my concerns with the Minister and the Southern Trust and hopefully the right decisions around sustaining care packages can be taken to ensure that services, particularly in rural areas, give security and consistency to patients.”
