Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
1616. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health if he will address a matter raised in correspondence (details supplied); his plans to review the current staffing levels and standards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42422/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government values and appreciates people coming forward to report safeguarding concerns to the appropriate professional bodies and authorities. Where a resident or family has a concern with regard to a regulated health professional such as a nurse, doctor or therapist, a complaint can be brought to the relevant regulator.
HIQA is the national independent regulator of health and social care services and through its powers assesses whether services are providing high-quality, safe and effective services and supports. As a regulator HIQA has no formal legal role in examining individual complaints, however, the Authority does take into account all information it receives, including complaints from the public, when carrying out inspections.
Part 7 of the Health Act 2007 (Care and Welfare of Residents in Designated Centres for Older People) Regulations 2013 stipulates that the registered provider of the nursing home must agree a contract in writing with each resident on their admission to the nursing home. This contract must include details of the services to be provided to that resident and the fees to be charged. Residents should never be charged fees which are not set out in the contract. The Department of Health and the HSE are not a party to such contracts which are concluded between each resident and their nursing home.
Registered providers of nursing home care are obliged to provide an accessible and effective complaints procedure. Concerns about additional charges should in the first instance be taken up with the nursing home provider. The Office of the Ombudsman can examine complaints about the actions of a range of public bodies and, from 24 August 2015, complaints relating to the administrative actions of private nursing homes. The Office of the Ombudsman normally only deals with a complaint once the individual has already gone through the complaints procedure of the private nursing home concerned.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) is an independent statutory body with a dual mandate to enforce competition and consumer protection law in Ireland. CCPC’s mission is to promote competition and enhance consumer welfare. The CCPC has published consumer protection guidelines for contracts of care in long-term residential care services for older people. The guidelines set out the obligations and responsibilities that providers must adhere to under consumer protection law and are aimed at providing greater transparency, clarity and certainty for consumers.
The COVID-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel Report, published in August 2020, provides a guiding framework for the ongoing pandemic response in nursing homes and also more broadly for a wide-ranging programme of improvement and reform for older persons. The report made a number of specific recommendations in relation to staffing in nursing homes. As part of this response, Phase 3 of the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in Long Term Residential Care Settings for Older Persons commenced.
In February 2021, I established a National Taskforce to oversee the development of Phase 3 of the Safe Staffing Framework. The core objective of this Taskforce is to develop an evidence-based framework to support the determination of safe nurse staffing and skill mix based on resident care needs.
This work follows the publication of the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in General and Specialist Medical and Surgical Care Settings in Ireland (Department of Health 2018) referred to as Phase 1 and more recently the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in Adult Emergency Care Settings in Ireland (Department of Health 2022), referred to as Phase 2. Phase 3 is a unique stage of the framework development as it is the first time it will span across public, private, and voluntary care settings.
Professor Jonathan Drennan, University College Cork is leading a research team which is analysing data from 9 pilot sites with the purpose of testing the capability of the Framework. This work will allow for evaluation of the impact of implementing a Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing in Long Term residential care settings on specific resident, staff and organisational outcomes.
Once sufficient research data has been collected and analysed, an evaluation report of the impact of implementing the Framework will be presented by the research team to the National Taskforce for its consideration. The recommendations of the Taskforce will be considered by the Department in due course.
More generally, the Fourth Progress Report on the Implementation of the COVID-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel Recommendations was published on 21 June 2022. The report can be found on my Department’s website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/publication/c7f5b-covid-19-nursing-homes-expert-panel-report-implementation-oversight-team/
