Press release
The recruitment of 128 interRAI care needs facilitators has commenced across the HSE
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler, yesterday welcomed the commencement of recruitment of the 128 interRAI care needs facilitators. This will help to progress the national rollout of interRAI as the standard assessment tool for care-needs.
Launching the recruitment process, Minister Butler said:
“The government is committed to the introduction of a statutory home support scheme. I am pleased to announce the recruitment of the 128 interRAI care needs facilitators. This is a significant step towards delivering safer, more equitable and higher quality home support services.”
The roll out of interRAI across Community Health Networks (CHNs) and Community Specialist Teams (CSTs) will result in a standardised assessment for Nursing, Health and Social Care Professionals in assessing clients care needs. It will assist in the deliverance of a standardised approach to care planning and support the objective of maintaining clients in the community.
The interRAI Care Needs Facilitator will fulfil the important role of champion and centre point for interRAI within CHNs and CSTs and facilitate the integration of interRAI for all team members. Recruitment of the Care Needs Facilitator posts will commence with a view to having the posts in place by the end of Q3 2022.
InterRAI is a not-for-profit collaborative network of researchers and practitioners in over 35 countries committed to improving care for persons who are disabled or medically complex. The interRAI consortium strives to promote evidence-informed clinical practice and policy decision making through the collection and interpretation of high- quality data about the characteristics and outcomes of people served across a variety of health and social services settings.
There are over 20 assessment instruments in the interRAI integrated suite. InterRAI assessments create person-focussed, longitudinal records that can be viewed, understood and used irrespective of care setting thus reducing duplication and fragmentation.
The government is committed to establishing a new, statutory home-support scheme. The new scheme will provide equitable and transparent access to high-quality services for people based on their assessed care-needs. As part of this a home support pilot using interRAI assessments is underway in 4 pilot areas (East Westmeath in Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO) 8; Tuam, Athenry and Loughrea in CHO 2; Bandon, Kinsale and Carrigaline in CHO 4; and Ballyfermot and Palmerstown in CHO 7). InterRAI standardised outputs will be used to determine prioritisation and levels of care required.
A comprehensive and robust operational model for the roll-out of the interRAI has been developed which will facilitate effective, efficient, fair and transparent care needs assessment and planning and appropriate service delivery. The interRAI outputs and pilot site evaluation will be critical to the development of the new home-support scheme.