Nursing home closures mean 500 fewer beds available

Nursing home closures mean 500 fewer beds available

Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, said there is an underlying issue with how nursing homes are funded. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The nursing home sector is losing almost 500 beds this year with 11 nursing homes shut already and six more now working with the health watchdog Hiqa to end their registration. Industry representatives fear more homes will close in the new year.

The 11 homes which are already closed had a total of 318 beds offering care to residents. Hiqa said two of these homes were not in use when their registration ended meaning that their beds - 32 and 11 respectively - were already out of the system.

Nursing homes must give Hiqa six months' notice of their intention to quit the market. This is to allow residents and their families find somewhere else to live.

A Hiqa spokesman said: “A further six centres are in the process of closing with the loss of a further 171 beds.”

Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents private and voluntary nursing homes, have warned this the sector is facing widespread difficulties.  CEO Tadhg Daly said he heard this week of another Dublin home with 31 beds which is preparing to close and is not included yet in these figures.

“It has an impact on care of the older person, people are losing their homes not to put too fine a point on it,” he said. "We expect unfortunately that there will be more closures next year.” 

He called on the Government to offer more supports and said there is an underlying issue with how nursing homes are funded. “It was accepted pre-Covid that there were issues around the funding model,” he said. 

“When you add Covid in, add in inflation, it is definitely creating more instability. We are seeing that now with 17 to 18 closures already this year.” 

This is not only an issue in rural areas, he said, with NHI aware of a home in the town of Athenry which is closing. He added that there are implications for the wider health service.

“When you see those figures there, almost 500 beds less in the nursing homes, that is going to mean 500 people who would ordinarily be out in the community, when they now present for care, they may present into an already over-stretched acute hospital system,” he said.

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