Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
2043. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Health if he will ensure that there is equal treatment of private nursing homes in relation to subvention payments regardless of their location; if the sizeable divergence in payments at present will be removed without delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44152/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Department of Health acknowledges that there are variations in the cost of care across public centres as well as across private nursing homes, with public nursing homes generally having a higher cost of care to the Exchequer. However, it is important to note that regardless of whether it is a private, voluntary or public nursing home, the resident's financial contribution is the same; the price of care only affects levels of state funding and has no direct impact on the resident.
Funding to support people to access services in the sector continues to be provided in line with the long-established statutory mechanisms under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009. This is the mechanism established by the Oireachtas to provide for the processes relating to funding under the NHSS and the negotiation of prices for services for private and voluntary providers with the designated State agency, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). Maximum prices for individual nursing homes are agreed with the NTPF following negotiations and based on the NTPF’s cost criteria. These criteria include:
- Costs reasonably incurred by the nursing home
- Local market prices
- Historic prices
- Overall budgetary capacity
The NTPF carry out this role independently under the NHSS Act 2009 and there is no role for Ministers or the Department in these negotiations.
It should also be noted that the department continues to work with the NTPF to take forward the recommended actions that emerged from the review of the NTPF pricing system published in June 2021. One of these actions relates to exploring a new geographical pricing model for the sector. The Department is also forward the nine recommendations of the Value For Money Review on Nursing Home costs published last December.
