State “discrimination” in the operation of the Fair Deal nursing scheme is growing, private nursing home operators have claimed after the HSE published new figures showing a rise in the payment made to their public counterparts.
The HSE said it would cost €1,665 per week to provide care for an older person in a public residential centre this year, an increase of 2.4 per cent on 2019.
This was linked to pay increases for staff working in such public units under the current public service pay agreement, the HSE said on Thursday.
Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents private nursing homes, said this meant their members would receive about 60 per cent less than their public counterparts for providing care under the Fair Deal nursing home scheme.
Chief executive Tadhg Daly said private operators received just over €1,000 per week on average under the scheme.
Citing a growing inequality of treatment between public and private and voluntary homes, the organisation accused the HSE “of trying to bury the amount it pays public nursing homes by releasing the figures late in the evening on a busy news day where virus issues dominate”.
It also questioned the legality of the HSE using money from outside Fair Deal to top up fees payable to public nursing homes under the scheme.
Operating costs
The HSE said the €1,665 weekly bill related to the operating costs of providing care in public residential centres.
“They do not relate to the amount a person will pay towards their care under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme [Fair Deal],” the HSE said.
“It is acknowledged 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.”
The HSE said there were a number of factors that contributed to such costs. It said these included reductions in the number of long-stay public beds to comply with health and safety, fire regulations and Hiqa standards; and provision of residential care services in locations that were not viable for private providers. Many of these units were smaller centres which would not be profitable for a private provider to supply e.g. Achill Island, Donegal, the HSE said.
The HSE also said that public nursing homes generally had higher nurse staffing ratios in place than private nursing homes.
Weekly costs
However, Mr Daly said the increase in the weekly costs of operating public nursing homes “represented a further example of the discrimination against the private and voluntary sector”.
He said the move would further threaten the viability of small nursing home providers. It would also lead to the provision of little or no additional capacity in the private nursing home sector despite the growing population of older people.
