Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I am dealing with that issue. They revealed that in the majority of these areas, the requirement of two nursing home inspections per year is being met. Areas which were not meeting the requirement have a number of reasons for this. The two inspections may not have been carried out strictly within a 12-month period but would have been carried out shortly afterwards. Also, the statutory requirement for six-monthly inspections was being met by environmental health officers, but the requirement for twice-yearly inspections by the medical and nursing inspection teams was not being met in full in the case of all nursing homes. However, in many instances these nursing homes would be inspected more than twice a year arising from issues identified in routine inspections or where a change occurred regarding registration details. It is also the case that nurses may follow up between inspections to offer advice on nursing issues.

Last year, 435 private nursing homes were registered and needed to be inspected. Of these 82 were inspected once——

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