Active Ageing and Community Care provides the Home Help service in order to assist older persons and persons with disability. The allocated sum for this service is €2 million.
The aim of the Home Help service is to support beneficiaries to keep on living in their community independently and as long as possible. It also aims to provide support for informal carers.
Helpers assist the elderly and persons with disability in performing light domestic chores, shopping and preparation of light meals.
During a press conference, Parliamentary Secretary for Active Ageing and Persons with Disability Silvio Parnis announced that this service has now been updated. Through this update, older persons over the age of 75 years who reside on their own will now be receiving automatically two hours of service every week, without any need for approval by the Home Help Allocation Board. The aim of this update is to give this service as quickly as possible to those elderly who are really in need. If the beneficiaries ask for more than two hours of service weekly, their application will have to be considered by the Home Help Allocation Board.
Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Parnis also said that the age of eligibility has also been updated. Those who are now eligible are:
- Older persons over 65 years of age;
- Persons under the age of 65 years holding a valid Special Identity Card issued by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD);
- Other applicants who suffer from a serious illness.
Each applicant is subject to an assessment by a health care professional in order to ensure that this service is being given to those who are truly in need.
