Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for those questions. Regarding the public nursing home supports, I will ask that a note be provided to the Deputy. Obviously, a substantial amount of support was provided to the nursing homes across the country, and this was supported by Nursing Homes Ireland. I will get a detailed note not just on the money but also on the additional capacity provided through the community healthcare organisations.

On the expansion of home care, we have a very ambitious target for this year, that is, to add an additional 5 million hours. Some €150 million for additional expenditure was allocated. Of this, €140 million was for the provision of the hours and €10 million was for the provision of what is called the interRAI system. We are fundamentally changing how home care is provided in the country. The interRAI system will essentially allow for the individual assessment of patient needs and their care requirements. There are many advantages to it, including around transparency, but I am very keen on the fact that it helps in terms of health equality. It will allow us to ascertain what parts of the country have the level of service provision they need and the parts that need additional support.

The Deputy mentioned regulation. I actually brought a memorandum to the Government today and we got agreement on the drafting of the heads of a Bill on the regulation of home care. It is a really important move. There is a major focus on it. The Deputy is very aware of this, not least because he and Deputy Higgins tabled a Bill on it. There was much progress today. We will be drafting a very comprehensive Bill on the regulation of home care services and also expanding it, essentially bringing into line the regulation of nursing homes and the regulation of home care because there needs to be more of a continuum. My view, which is shared by many members of the committee, is that we need to maximise home care over nursing home care, not that there is not a role for nursing home care. Of course there is, but it is a question of keeping people at home as much as possible. A really important step was taken today.

The Deputy continues to advocate very strongly regarding the elective facilities, including the elective hospital in Cork. Some of the thinking of the Sláintecare team is that the elective hospitals could be day care only. The thinking is that if the quality and speed of care are maximised for less complex procedures, it frees up inpatient beds and acute beds for complex care. However, I am aware that there are strong views on this in Galway and Cork. The Deputy and other Deputies have expressed them, and some in the clinical community have done so in regard to wanting a mixture of inpatient and day care beds in any new elective hospital. No decisions have been made on that. The thinking is still being worked on.