As the Deputy may be aware there is a commitment in the national health strategy to provide 1,370 additional assessment and rehabilitation beds, plus 600 additional day hospital beds with facilities encompassing specialist areas such as falls, osteoporosis treatment, fracture prevention, Parkinson's disease, stroke prevention, heart failure and continence promotion clinics. In addition, the strategy proposed the provision of an extra 5,600 extended care/community nursing unit places over a seven year period which will include provision for people with dementia. Provision of the above facilities was contingent on the provision of the necessary resources.
As the Deputy may also be aware, public private partnerships, PPP, are currently being piloted in the health sector. PPP is based on the concept that better value for money for the Exchequer may be achieved through the exploitation of private sector competencies to capture innovation and the allocation of risk to the party best able to manage it. Initially, the focus will be mainly in the area of community nursing units, CNUs, for older people. It is anticipated that 17 new CNUs will be created when the initial pilot programmes are complete, providing up to a maximum of 850 new beds in Dublin and Cork. The services offered in these units will include: assessment and rehabilitation; respite; extended care; convalescence; and, if the PPP pilot demonstrates success, it is the intention to use it as a means of providing additional community nursing units in other locations throughout the country.
Also, under the acute bed capacity initiative, I have provided additional funding of €12.6 million this year — €8.8 million to the ERHA and €3.8 million to the Southern Health Board — to facilitate the discharge of patients from the acute system to a more appropriate setting thereby freeing up acute beds. It allows for funding through the subvention system of additional beds in the private nursing home sector and ongoing support in the community. Already this funding has resulted in the discharge of over 240 patients from acute hospitals in the eastern region to various locations, the vast majority to private nursing homes. In the Cork area, the initiative has resulted in the discharge of 112 patients from acute hospitals to more appropriate settings.
The ERHA and the Southern Health Board are actively monitoring the situation and working with hospitals, the area health boards and the private nursing home sector to ensure that every effort is made to minimise the number of delayed discharges in acute hospitals.