Written answers

Tuesday, 12 December 2006

Department of Health and Children

Nursing Home Charges

11:00 am

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 283: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the timeframe for repayment of nursing home costs in cases where the person cared for is now deceased and the claim is being made by family members or the deceased person's estate. [42711/06]

Photo of Mary HarneyMary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006 came into effect on 30 June 2006. The repayment scheme was launched publicly by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the scheme administrator KPMG/McCann Fitzgerald on 14 August 2006. A national advertising campaign and a helpline also commenced on this date.

Under the scheme all those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged and are alive will have their charges repaid in full. The estates of all those fully eligible persons, who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long term residential care and died since 9 December 1998 will have the charges repaid in full. The scheme does not allow for repayments to the estates of those who died prior to that date.

The Scheme Administrator has commenced scanning the records of long stay facilities around the country and to date more than 50 locations have been visited for this purpose. These records will form the basis for the calculation of the majority of the repayments.

In relation to dates of repayments to applicants, the HSE has informed the Department that over 21,000 forms have been submitted to the scheme administrator applying for repayments and these applications are being processed at present. The timeframe for repayment is predicated primarily on whether the applicant is alive or whether the application is being made by the estate of a deceased person. Living people who were wrongly charged will be the first to receive payments under the scheme. It is estimated that there are now in the region of 15,000 people within this category.

The HSE has advised that offers of repayment have commenced and that the first payments have issued with further payments continuing in subsequent weeks. It is expected that the bulk of payments to estates will commence in the Spring of 2007.

Provision has been made for applications to be received up to 1 January 2008.

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