Harney challenged for under-spending on nursing homes

The Irish Nursing Homes Organisation (INHO) has challenged Minister for Health Mary Harney to explain why her department last year under spent by €31m on grants for nursing home residents.

In her 2006 budget speech the Minister for Health said her department had estimated a spend of €140m on the Nursing Home Subvention Scheme for residents of private nursing homes for 2005.

INHO chief executive Tadhg Daly demanded to know why “the Comptroller and Auditor Generals report for 2005 says that subvention payments for that year totalled €109.8m when the Department of Health had allowed for a spend of €140m?”

“Where has this money gone and what has it been spent on?” he asked.

The Comptroller and Auditor Generals report highlighted the lack of clear rules about who is entitled to get enhanced payments and the practice of each HSE area assessing their own cases.

Mr Daly said that the failure of the Government to radically reform the subvention scheme for persons in long-term residential care is extremely disappointing, and is causing serious distress for many elderly people and their families all over the country.

He added that “the €31 million left unspent could have gone a long way towards reducing the inequity in the subvention system whereby applicants and residents with the same level of need and resources are being treated differently in different HSE regions”.

The subvention scheme is designed to support people who, on assessment, qualify on a needs basis as requiring nursing home care and who also qualify on a means test basis as being unable to fund their own care.

The INHO is the national representative body for private nursing homes in the Republic of Ireland.

The private sector provides 17,722 beds accounting for 63% of all long term care beds in the country and directly employs in excess of 18,000 staff.