AQW 242/22-27 Written question to the Minister of Health
To ask the Minister of Health (i) how many short breaks were provided to unpaid carers by each Health and Social Care Trust during the first quarter of 2022; and (ii) how this compares to the first quarter in (a) 2021; (b) 2020; and (c) 2019.
Asked by Kellie Armstrong MLA on 19 May 2022
- Answered
- Written
- After due date
- Tabled
- 19 May 2022
- Answer due by
- 7 June 2022
- Answered
- 10 August 202283 days after tabling
- Department
- Department of Health
- Priority question
- No
Answer
Short Breaks remain limited as Trusts are dependent on access to respite beds in care homes, which are subject to public health guidance in relation to admissions from the community. The Public Health Agency recently issued a communication to care homes, to relax testing and admission guidelines, to improve the availability of short breaks.
In addition, the Department is aware that several respite beds in care homes have been withdrawn by independent sector providers. Due to the limited availability of bed based Short Breaks over the last two years the frequency of access to this service has been determined by the social work assessment of need.
While the total number of short breaks provided to unpaid carers is not routinely collected, therefore, presented in Table 1 below is the number of individual adult carers who received a short break during the period by each Health and Social Care Trust.
Table 1: The number of adult carers provided with a short break, by each Health and Social Care Trust (HSCT), for the first quarter in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
| HSCT Name | Jan - Mar 2019 | Jan - Mar 2020 | Jan - Mar 2021 | Jan - Mar 2022 |
| Belfast | 1,441 | 1,155 | 2,127 | 1,894 |
| Northern | 3,129 | 5,411 | 2,961 | 2,354 |
| South Eastern | 1,583 | 1,731 | 1,403 | 1,225 |
| Southern | 1,745 | 1,729 | 1,599 | 1,389 |
| Western | 885 | 900 | 763 | 637 |
| Northern Ireland | 8,783 | 10,926 | 8,853 | 7,499 |
Source: Quarterly returns supplied by HSC Trusts to the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG).
It should be noted that the figures above are representative of the number of adults receiving a short break during the specified time period. Trusts only report on adult short break care where an adult is caring for another adult and excludes young carers or children being cared for. The information presented excludes day care activity. Additionally, please note that there may be an element of double/over counting as carers potentially can get more than one form of short break during the period. The above information is sourced predominantly from manual systems and therefore should be treated with caution as figures are subject to change.
Further information on the remobilisation of learning disability services can be found on the Department’s website:
https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/remobilisation-learning-disability-services