Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 135: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children her views on whether, in view of the recent case in a nursing home (details supplied) in County Kerry, there is an adequate number of inspectors available in the north Kerry region for the monitoring of care within its nursing homes. [21496/05]

Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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In the HSE southern area, which covers counties Cork and Kerry, there are five nursing homes inspection teams, each comprising a senior medical officer, chairperson, a director or assistant director of public health nursing and a principal or senior environmental health officer. One of these teams is based in County Kerry, where there are 18 registered private nursing homes.

As the issues raised by the Deputy are operational in nature, the HSE southern area which is responsible for the delivery of health services in the Kerry area, has informed the Department that it is satisfied that it has sufficient resources to enable it to meet its inspection requirements under the Health (Nursing Homes) Act 1990 and the Nursing Homes Regulations 1993.

The HSE has also initiated a review of the current approach to nursing home inspections. This review will examine issues such as preparation work undertaken, assessment tools used, methodologies employed during inspections, guidelines dealing with announced and unannounced visits and procedures to assess the quality of care. The reviewer has been asked to provide a report to the HSE outlining his findings, including any actions which should be taken to improve the quality of the inspection process and to identify any other issues that need to be addressed for the future.