Results from the 2021 Home Care Survey have been released.
The New Brunswick Health Council (NBHC) conducted a survey to evaluate the quality of home care from the perspective of New Brunswickers.
In New Brunswick, there are two types of publicly funded home care services: Extra-Mural Programs (health-related types of services) and Home Support Services (subsidized services through social development).
In 2021, over 7,700 citizens completed the survey, and the NBHC found several key indicators.
“Over the past decade, we are seeing two key things. As far as when services start, we’re seeing an improvement of how quickly services start after acquiring services,” said Stéphane Robichaud, CEO of NBHC.
“We also measure another element which is whether people experience limits in the number of hours to them, and we’ve seen a reduction in the number of people who have experienced limits as well,” continued Robichaud.
The survey also found citizens are satisfied with the home care services they are receiving.
“When it comes to home support services and extra-mural services they’ve always received the highest level of satisfaction among all of the services that we measure,” mentioned Robichaud.
Robichaud brought up that language was part of their findings.
While the percentage of citizens who reported being offered services in their official language of choice remained steady, there was a drop in those who indicated always receiving their services in their preferred language.
The survey also contains new indicators regarding the impacts of COVID-19 on experiences with home care.
Robichaud some citizens experienced limitations, reductions, or cancellations of their home care services because of the pandemic.
“In the northwest, we had 23 per cent of people who indicated a reduction, cancellation, or limits of visits due to the pandemic, where as in Zone 6 it was only 8.1 per cent, in the Fundy Shore and Saint John area it was only it was only 4.4 per cent,” added Robichaud.
To review all of the results, CLICK HERE.