Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent)
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680. To ask the Minister for Health if he will report on the current nursing home bed provision, with a breakdown between the private and voluntary sector and the public sector; if he will outline the projected annual increased demand for each of the next ten years; the plans, if any, to meet this demand; if he will provide consideration to the establishment of a forum on long term residential care, under the auspices of his Department, in order to address this matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36201/13]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Health Information and Quality Authority is the statutory body responsible for the registration of all designated centres for older people and full details of all currently registered nursing homes, including the maximum number of residents who can be accommodated can be found on the HIQA website, . At the end of June 2013 there were 7,280 public residential beds. Of these 5,412 were long stay & 1,868 were short stay beds.

The HSE has responsibility for the delivery of services set out in the National Service Plan and to ensure that services are delivered within budget. The demand for these services will continue to grow with changing demographics, and the associated complex needs of an ageing population. At the last Census, there were over 535,000 people over the age of 65 in Ireland. This was an increase of 14.4% since 2006. It is estimated that by 2041, there will be about 1.4m people over the age of 65 in Ireland, with the greatest increases in the over 80 age group. We will therefore have to ensure that the funds that are available are used to best effect for our older people.

The Nursing Homes Support Scheme was introduced in October 2009 with a commitment to review its operation after three years. This review is now underway and will consider the long-term sustainability of the Scheme as well as looking at the community based services with a view to completion by end 2013/early 2014. In conjunction with this the Department is working closely with the HSE to develop an overall plan regarding future public nursing home provision for the Minister's consideration. This Plan will take account of the priorities identified in recent HSE analysis and of the broad examination of future services, both residential and community, for older people which will be carried out under the current review of the Scheme. Following on from the review a longer-term plan for public residential facilities is therefore expected to be completed by mid-2014.

On-going consultation with all stakeholders and the public in general is already a standard feature of our approach across policy areas. Both my Ministerial colleagues, myself and officials from the Department regularly meet with stakeholders from across the public, private and voluntary sector to discuss policies, services and developments including those for Older People. In fact officials of the Department have recently met and are always happy to receive suggestions and other input from Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI), which has called for the establishment of a forum of this nature. The establishment of an additional formal consultation forum such as that suggested by NHI is not considered necessary given the very effective level of consultation that already takes place and to which we remain committed for the future.