Debate contribution: Domiciliary Care Packages: Northern Health and Social Care Trust
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 13 February 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Adjournment
- Heading
- Domiciliary Care Packages: Northern Health and Social Care Trust
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4206570
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on your new role. This is a very important and touching subject, and I am so glad that the contributors have spoken about the most important element in this: people. Nearly every one of us has spoken about people: the people who receive the care and the people who administer the care. It takes a special type of person to go into a private home and administer intimate care to someone who could well be in the twilight of their life or be so severely disabled, no matter what age they are, that it is hard for them to live. It takes a special type of person. It is also true to say, as has been mentioned, that those people, special as they are, are so undervalued. It should drive a stake through our hearts that they are so undervalued. Every policy direction that the Department of Health has taken around health and care has been in order to keep people at home. That is all well and good, but, if you cannot support those people, you create further casualties and further ill health and you increase the number of people who need care. The burden on a family when you have a sick relative at home who is not getting the care that they require is absolutely mighty. It is strangling, and it can destroy family relationships, not just with the principal patient but with siblings and others. It can poison a family relationship for ever, even when that principal patient has gone. If the drive is to keep people at home longer — I am not saying that that is the wrong drive — we really need to do better at investing in the right places. While the health service needs dramatic reform in more ways than one, it strikes me that this is one of the easiest areas to reform because it is all about people. When I first became an MLA in 2010, it was clear, even then, that it was difficult to get a care package for someone living in a high area or a countryside area like Newtowncrommelin or Glenwhirry. Here we are in 2024, and people in villages such as Broughshane and Kells struggle to get care packages.
The rot has crept right down into lowlands and population centres. Something is therefore going dramatically wrong.
It strikes me that one of the easiest ways in which to reform, because it is about people and because, in many ways, it is simple, is this: pay those people what they deserve and what they require. Make sure that their terms and conditions are appropriate, and make sure that they get a decent travel allowance, because they are the ones who drive up lanes that are miles long, in all weather, to get to the patient. We can all appreciate that to pay them appropriately will still be a lot cheaper than patients being in a hospital setting or bed. I have a case that came to my attention only last week. An elderly gentleman has been in hospital for 12 weeks when he should not have been. The man's ailment was a broken ankle. Twelve weeks in hospital for a broken ankle. Think of the repercussions of that throughout the health service. That is the reason that other systems in our health service are failing. Fix it at the very top, by caring for people at home, and you will go some way to fixing some of the other ills that infest our health service. The only way is to pay people appropriately, make sure that their terms and conditions are solid and make sure that they get the allowance that means that they can travel about the country, as we ask them to, to care for the people whom we so love.
644 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.96).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.96 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.92 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.05 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.03 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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