Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 267: To ask the Minister for Health and Children when she will instruct her Department to issue payment to relatives of people who were in public nursing homes; if she is still accepting claims for the long stay charges national co-ordinating unit; the number of claims received to date; the reason for the delay in processing the claims; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23849/07]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has responsibility for administering the scheme in conjunction with the appointed scheme administrator KPMG/McCann Fitzgerald.

The Health Service Executive has informed my Department that over 30,000 applications have been received to date. The scheme is progressing as speedily as possible and every effort is being made to complete repayments. The HSE has indicated that the delays in making repayments under the scheme have been due to legal and technical issues. Firstly, over 13,400 estates who lodged claims to date had not extracted a grant of representation in respect of the estate of the deceased patient. In these instances the person entitled to extract the grant of representation has to be identified before an application can be processed and to date over 6,800 certificates of entitlement permitting individuals to apply for a repayment have issued.

Secondly, there has been a high incidence of claimants providing insufficient information and these claims have taken longer to process as the scheme administrator must be provided with certain information in order to ensure that the correct person and correct amount is repaid. Thirdly, it has been necessary for the scheme administrator to visit over 330 HSE facilities to scan records which form the basis for the calculation of repayments. The format in which this information is held varies widely between institutions and usually includes a mixture of paper files, handwritten files and computer files.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 31st December 2007 and the HSE has indicated that final repayments should be made by mid 2008.