Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 594: To ask the Minister for Health the position regarding the fair deal scheme; if a person who has been in long-term care under the Health Service Executive for a number of years needed to have a medical procedure and was transferred to a bed in the Mater Hospital and is now ready to return to long-term care but has been told that funding for their long-stay bed ceased, resulting in them having to apply for the new fair deal scheme even though they were on the subvention for all the years they were in long-term care, the reason they cannot go back on the old system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34304/11]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The HSE's National Guidelines for the Standardised Implementation of the Nursing Home Subvention Scheme state that:

"The HSE can continue to pay subvention to cover temporary absences. However if this period of absence continues for more than one month, the HSE should investigate the matter further to establish the likelihood of the person returning to the nursing home. Staff in subvention offices should be aware that, in many cases, the bed is held at the request of the HSE. Due regard should therefore be given to the fact in that this may be the residents home and decisions to suspend or cease subvention should not be taken lightly in these cases. Where arrangements have been made between the HSE and a Nursing Home in relation to an approved temporary absence of a person, payment should be reviewed on a monthly basis at a minimum".

In addition, a commitment was made when the Nursing Homes Support Scheme was introduced that anyone who was in a nursing home when the scheme commenced could not be made worse off by the scheme.