Trust apologise to family after home care package withdrawn but no solution in sight

The Southern Trust has released a statement to Newry.ie apologising to the Lonergan family from Loughgilly, whose home care package was withdrawn from 31 March. But apart from an eleventh hour 'stay of execution' until after Easter there is no news in their statement of how this is going to be fixed!

 Up to November 2023 Alphie Lonergan, 84, a widower from Loughgilly had received a 3 hour weekday morning domiciliary care package for his two sons Donall, 48 and Ronan, 41 who have severe learning disabilities, but this was changed to 1 hour until the end of March 2026 when the Trust informed the family that even that was ending.

The Trust have stated they are providing temporary cover till after Easter while longer-term solutions are being explored, including reworking rotas, consulting other teams, and processing applicants from a recent Armagh recruitment drive. The Trust states there is growing pressure across the board with demand for home care far outstripping available staff.

Southern Trust Statement 2/4/26

"We apologise to this family for the distress and worry caused by the recent decision to withdraw their home care package.

This decision was necessary due to the lack of available social care staff to be able to continue with the service in this rural area. Social care, like many other professions, is experiencing workforce pressures, particularly in rural areas where it is more difficult to recruit and retain staff.

There are challenging and complex circumstances involved in this case and our dedicated team is continuing to work to find alternative options for this family. We will work directly with them and ensure they are kept updated on options/developments.

We have been able to secure some additional staffing support to temporarily allow us to continue to provide support to the family until after Easter. We continue to actively pursue a range of potential options to maintain the service for this family; including continuously reviewing rotas in the Armagh and surrounding areas to see if we can create additional capacity as well as linking with other multidisciplinary teams to seek support.  We have also checked with our staff working in other areas to see if they can do additional work in the area where this family lives, but with no uptake yet.

We are continuously working to actively recruit staff. We had a recruitment drive in Armagh on 26 March to increase the number of Home Care staff in the Armagh and surrounding areas and we are actively processing the successful applicants through the final stages of their recruitment process.

We greatly value the contribution of and proactively work with our Independent Sector Home care providers to find solutions to help as many local people as possible to remain at home. Regrettably they are unable to support us with providing a service to this family. 

The Southern Trust, like other Trusts, is facing enormous and rapidly increasing challenges in meeting the significant and rising demand for Home care services, as demand continues to outstrip supply. Despite the pressures, our hard-working Home Care staff across both the Trust and Independent Sector continue to work tirelessly supporting over 5,000 people in their own homes, every day."

See the full story at Loughgilly widower, 84, battles Southern Trust over care cuts for sons with disabilities