Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give the Deputy the latest figures I have for nursing home staff overall and then I will break them down for the private sector. The number of staff redeployed from the health service to long-term residential care facilities is 451, comprising 394 redeployed from the community and a further 57 redeployed from private nursing homes. In respect of private nursing homes, approximately 100 public staff have been redeployed from community settings to private nursing homes and a further 57 have been redeployed from acute hospitals to private nursing homes, making a total of 157. I am not sure that the two figures fully align.

The Deputy has raised the issue of discharges for some time. I will refer to the current relevant guidelines for discharge from hospitals to residential facilities. They are the interim public health and infection prevention and control guidelines on the prevention and management of Covid-19 cases and outbreaks in residential care facilities and similar units. The HPSC does a lot of things well, but snappy titles is not one of them.

On 10 March, the HSE issued preliminary guidance on the transfer of hospitalised patients from acute hospitals to residential care facilities in the context of the epidemic as it was then. The guidance included a number of procedures to be followed. For example, patients with Covid-19 should not be transferred to a long-term residential care facility until they had two consecutive tests indicating virus not detected. Patients who were symptomatic and contacts of a confirmed Covid case should be transferred only if the person had a test indicating the virus not detected and it was possible for the person to be isolated for the relevant incubation period. Patients who were asymptomatic and were contacts of a confirmed Covid case should transfer only if it was possible for the person to be isolated for the relevant incubation period and transfers from hospital with no evidence of the spread of Covid-19 should proceed as normal except for patients with respiratory tract infection meeting the then criteria for Covid-19 testing. In these cases, testing should be carried out on the result of the virus not detected before transfer. There is quite a lot in that, so I will put it in writing for the Deputy.

I heard the Deputy's comments on the national screening service during the week and I accept her bona fides in terms of what she wants to do. I am obviously not going to make decisions on the floor of the House on catch-up programmes and the like. The Deputy is not asking me to do so. It is really important that we follow the clinical and expert advice in this regard. Dr. Colm Henry, chief clinical officer with the HSE, is leading this. I spoke with the chief executive officer of the HSE, Mr. Paul Reid, yesterday about this matter. They are examining how to reintroduce screening in a safe way and at what point it should recommence. We note that screening has paused in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales and, I understand, in New Zealand and many other countries. The national screening service is participating in a national process, led jointly by Dr. Colm Henry and Ms Anne O'Connor, the chief operating officer, to restore health services safely. They are developing and updating their plans to restart the four screening programmes. They have confirmed that all four screening programmes are working on systems to invite people back for screening on a priority basis.

As the Deputy knows, it is important to say that not all screening services will come back at the same point in time because they are different, as she said. Dr. Colm Henry speaks about this much better than I do but, for example, the physical contact required for something like a mobile breast cancer unit for some screening-----

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