Dan Neville
Question:341 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of nursing home beds being rented for use from private service pro viders by the Mid-Western Health Board. [16876/01]
Written Answers. - Nursing Homes.
The Health (Nursing Homes) Act, 1990, which came into effect on 1 September 1993, has two principal objectives. The first is to ensure high standards of accommodation and care in all nursing homes registered under the Act, and the second is to provide a new system of nursing home subvention so that dependent persons most in need of nursing home care will have access to such care.
As the Deputy is aware a health board may pay more than the maximum rate of subvention relative to an individual's level of dependency, for example, in cases where personal funds are exhausted. Sections 22.3 and 22.4 of the Nursing Home (Subvention) Regulations, 1993, permit health boards to contract beds in private nursing homes and to pay more than the maximum rates of subvention in such cases.
However, the application of these provisions is a matter for the individual health board concerned in the context of meeting increasing demands for subventions within the board's revenue allocation as notified annually in the letters of determination.
I am advised by the Mid-Western Health Board that, at present, it does not have any beds rented for use from the private sector.
Question No. 342 answered with Question No. 313.