Nursing homes: Rules will hike fees

PRIVATE nursing homes have claimed that a series of vital national standards for the sector will force them to pass on up to e3.6 million in extra costs to private residents.

Yesterday Health Minister Mary Harney launched 32 long-awaited nursing home standards to ensure the safety of elderly residents and described it as a “landmark” day for the sector in Ireland.

Among the list of standards, to become a legal target for all 608 facilities across the country on July 1 and required by 2015, are the first ever inspections of public nursing homes, individual written contracts providing specific details on care and conditions, and further legal steps to ensure a repeat of the Leas Cross scandal does not occur.

As part of the plan, drawn up by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and strongly supported by elderly support groups, any nursing home management deemed to not have adequate qualifications will be barred from running a facility.

However, despite the positive steps, the private sector umbrella group Nursing Homes Ireland has warned the cost of the standards — in particular the requirement for facilities to pay a e500 registration fee every three years and a yearly fee of e190 per bed to finance the service improvements and inspection teams — mean private facilities will have no option but to pass the expense onto residents.

“We welcome the publication of the standards, and we particularly welcome that public nursing homes are going to be inspected for the first time, but what we are saying is that the registration fees are significant and excessive,” Tadhg Daly, chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, told the Irish Examiner.

“Our members having 50 beds in a facility is not uncommon, and that cost would be close to e10,000.

“Effectively that cost is going to be passed on to older people themselves. Nursing Home management are already struggling with general costs. We welcome the standards, we absolutely do, but what we are saying is that this will just compound the difficulties already there,” he said.

Private nursing homes currently account for 449 of the 608 facilities in Ireland, with more than 19,000 beds in the private sector.

According to Mr Daly, this means that private nursing home management will have to pay a combined total of e3.6m a year under the new plan — a figure the group claimed was almost four times higher than comparative figures in Britain and 45 times higher than the fee currently sought from private homes.

The Health Service Executive has been asked to pay a yearly rate of e1.9m for the registration of beds in the public nursing home system.

Under the new system, inspection teams from HIQA will be take part in announced and unannounced inspections of all nursing homes across the country at any point during the year, significantly increasing the current inspection rate of twice a year.

While accepting that private residents may be forced to pay for the increase in expenditure for private nursing home facilities, speaking at the launch of the vital standards Health Minister Mary Harney said the positive steps being taken will ensure elderly patients receive the care and dignity they deserve.

“An effective, robust, independent and transparent inspection regime for residential services for older people is a necessity. Our older population... deserve the reassurance that the care they will be given and the environment they will live in will meet high standards.

“This is a benchmark for providers of care for older people. It is a watershed, and it will be vigorously and robustly enforced,” she said.

Age Action Ireland have welcome the move to ensure that standards are adhered to across the nursing home sector, stating that the publication of the document was a landmark day in the protection of elderly people.

However, the older persons action group has said it would be concerned if any private residents are forced to effectively pay for the increased costs of the plan.