Burke aiming to support people to ‘live with dignity’

Healthy Age Friendly Homes Programme

Minister Peter Burke last week visited Westmeath County Council to hear about a new co-ordination service that is supporting older people to remain living at home independently.

The Healthy Age Friendly Homes Programme is delivered by local government via the Age Friendly Ireland shared service. It is funded by Sláintecare in the Dept of Health, and under it, local co-ordinators visit older people in their homes and help them to access grants and other supports in the areas of housing, health, community services and assistive living technology.

The aim is to: improve housing conditions, for example through adaptations, rightsizing, homesharing, and energy retrofits; support overall health and wellbeing through improving access to social, community, transport and technology supports; prevent falls and reduce admission to acute settings or residential care; reduce the average length of stay [AvLOS] in acute settings by ensuring that the home environment is suitable for discharge from hospital.

Minister Burke said: “I was delighted to meet the Age Friendly co-ordinator staff in Westmeath County Council and also Longford County Council in Mullingar last week.

“I have found through my constituency work that accessing services and knowing your entitlements can be a significant challenge for the elderly in our society. The work of this initiative goes right into the community and knocks on doors bringing services to those who badly need them and are restricted in whatever way, by mobility or by accessing the online networks which are so prevalent now. By providing these links, we are really helping those who are most in need.”

One of the programme participants Geraldine Murphy, who spoke at a recent Sláintecare webinar, described how the local co-ordinator assisted her: “When the co-ordinator visited me, we went through what was available to me. We filled in the forms for the personal alarm, in case I fell; I felt a bit safer having that. From that then I applied to the council for the stairlift application and also for the bathroom. I was grateful to find out that that was available.”

This new programme, established in 2021, is already demonstrating significant results. By mid-April 2022, it had carried out 1,266 assessment visits, and 2,476 actions are in progress. One of the main areas of need is for housing adaptation grants.

The programme evaluation is being undertaken by Maynooth University. On entry to the programme, 28% of participants reported difficulty using stairs all of the time; 23% reported difficult with shopping/getting out all of the time; and a further 20% report difficulty sometimes. Twenty one per cent reported difficulty with bathing or showering all of the time, which suggests that many are living in housing without accessible bathroom facilities. This is a key area that the programme can support through adaptations or rightsizing.

Minister Burke met the leas-cathaoirleach of Westmeath County Council, Cllr Bill Collentine, local Healthy Age Friendly Homes co-ordinators Ann Moran and Mary Carey, programme participants, and local authority staff.

Plans are in progress to scale up to Phase 2 with the intention of covering all local authority areas.