Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

The Government places great importance on the policies and practical reforms we are implementing to ensure patient safety and quality assured health services. I assume the registration and inspection fee Deputy is referring to is in respect of designated centres or nursing homes for older people.

The Health Act 2007 provides for the registration and inspection of all nursing homes. Inspections are carried out by the Chief Inspector of Social Services, part of the Health Information and Quality Authority. It is important to have effective mechanisms to maintain and enhance public confidence in the delivery of quality residential care. Residents, their families and members of the public need to be reassured that the authority is monitoring the care people receive. It is important, therefore, to have an effective, robust, independent and properly resourced inspection regime for residential services for older people. This involves substantial costs on the Exchequer and it was considered appropriate that these costs should largely be met by the service providers.

Accordingly, it was decided that the fees to be charged by HIQA to such providers, including those operating in both the public and private sectors, should be largely on a self-funding basis. Such fees are provided for in the Health Act 2007.

The Department of Health and Children examined HIQA's estimates of the resources it would require to carry out the registration and inspection function. As a result, it was estimated that the minimum additional annual funding required would be €4.5 million. This covers staffing costs for the inspectorate. Capital and other operational costs will, for the time being, be met within HIQA's overall existing allocation.

Since 1 July 2009 all nursing homes, public and private, are registered under the Health Act 2007 (Registration of Designated Centres for Older People) Regulations 2009 by the chief inspector. All nursing homes, public and private, will also be inspected under the new care and welfare regulations and patient focused quality standards. Since this date nursing homes pay an annual fee of €190 per place and a registration fee of €500 every three years for the registration and inspection regime of the authority. This constitutes an average weekly cost of €3.73 per registered place. Effectively, nursing homes contribute to the cost of regulation as a normal business cost, as occurs in other regulated sectors.

The fees are payable by the registered provider or are to be included by an applicant when applying for registration. Residents should only be charged those fees set out in their agreed contract with the provider.

My colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, is aware that, as with many other sectors, there are financial pressures in the nursing home sector. In this regard, she was pleased, at the suggestion of nursing home owners, to include in regulation a mechanism for the annual fee to be paid by the registered provider in three equal instalments each year to help address this issue.

As I am sure the Deputy will agree, lessons had to be learned from well publicised incidents in nursing homes in recent years and reports such as that of the Leas Cross commission of investigation published only last year. This new system of regulation and inspection, which was introduced in July 2009, is to underpin quality and safety for residents in nursing homes. We have also introduced a new system of financial support, fair deal, for residents in all nursing homes from last October to ensure access is affordable and anxiety free for all. In this context, the Government considers it reasonable that the nursing home sector should contribute towards these important developments in assuring quality care for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

If Deputy Behan provides me with details of a specific case, I will have it investigated on his behalf.

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