Nursing home finance plan needed

FIVE percent of older Irish people require long-term nursing home care.

This small group comprises older people of advanced age with high levels of disability and frailty.

The news that the 2011 funding for the Fair Deal Nursing Home Scheme has run out in the first half of the year is shocking since the most direct effects will be felt by highly vulnerable people at the point of transition from home or acute hospital to nursing home care. In the short-term, Fair Deal co-funding must be restored to spare this minority of older people and their families any further distress or uncertainty.