Home & Community Care Ireland Winter Plan 2023
As we enter the perennial winter hospital overcrowding crisis, exacerbated this year by health funding challenges, home care continues to be marginalised as a tool in combatting Delayed Transfers of Care (DTOC). There has also been a lack of focus on preventing hospital admissions by failing to tackle persistent home care waiting lists. Current proposals to force patients into the first nursing home with a bed available represents a kneejerk reaction that is detrimental to the patient’s autonomy and contrary to the Government’s stated ‘home first’ policy. In response to these challenges, Home and Community Care Ireland (HCCI) has prepared a set of policies to support timely discharge back to the home and increase sectoral capacity during Winter 2023/24.
