Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 June 2004
295 Mr. Haughey asked the Minister for Health and Children the measures he is taking to provide more public long-term care beds in order to relieve the problems in acute hospitals; the initiatives introduced to encourage patients to transfer to private nursing homes or to return to their own homes instead; if new guidelines have issued to health boards from his Department in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19226/04]
View answerAs 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, PPPs, are currently being piloted in the health sector. PPPs are 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 developed when the initial pilot programmes are complete, providing up to a maximum of 850 new beds in Dublin and Cork. Services offered in these units to patients will include assessment and rehabilitation; respite; extended care; convalescence; and, if the PPP pilot demonstrates success, it is intended to use it as a means of providing additional community nursing units in other locations throughout the country.
Under the acute bed capacity initiative, my Department has provided additional funding of €17.6 million this year, €13.8 million to the ERHA and €3.8 million to the Southern Health Board, to facilitate the discharge of patients from the acute hospital system to a more appropriate setting thereby freeing up acute beds. This initiative provides for funding, through the nursing home subvention scheme, of additional beds in the private nursing home sector and ongoing support in the community. My Department has provided significant funding for the nursing home subvention scheme, and that over €443 million has been allocated to the scheme over the past five years. In 2000, the budget available for the scheme was €48.439 million, and this year €115 million was made available which equates to an overall increase of 137% in funding. Approximately 350 people have benefited from this funding resulting in their discharge from acute hospitals in the eastern region to private nursing homes and to their own homes. In the Cork area, the initiative has resulted in the discharge of 270 patients from acute hospitals to more appropriate settings. Both 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 from the acute hospital system.
The Deputy may be interested to note that I have been meeting with administrative and medical representatives of the ERHA, the area health boards and the Dublin academic teaching hospitals, DATHs, on a regular basis and that at the most recent meeting I was advised by the authority that it has commenced a programme to re-open public extended care beds which were closed for a number of reasons.
