Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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240. To ask the Minister for Health the extent that the public nursing home sector costs per patient are higher than those in the private nursing home sector; if strict comparison has been made with the mobility of the patients in each case in order to make a valid comparison; the extent to which the public nursing home sector caters for patients of a higher dependency requiring more intensive and specialist nursing care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8849/14]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I presume the Deputy's question relates to recent coverage in the media of a report commissioned by Nursing Homes Ireland called Health’s Ageing Crisis: Time For Action - A Future Strategy for Ireland’s Long-Term Residential Care Sector. My Department was not involved in the commissioning of this report, but further information on the methodology applied may be available direct from Nursing Homes Ireland.

However, the Long-Stay Activities Statistics for 2012 (the most recent year available), which are published on the Department's website, provide information in respect of the percentage distribution of patients resident by level of dependancy in long-term care as at the 31st December that year. These are self-reported survey results and can be summarised as follows:

Survey Response Rate -78.1%

Long-Stay Units by Category: Percentage Distribution of Patients Resident by Level of Dependency

One of the key priorities identified in the HSE's National Service Plan for 2014 is the implementation of a Single Assessment Tool (SAT) for older people. This standardised framework will uniformly assess dependancy levels, allow resources to be targeted towards those with the greatest needs and enable supports and services to be designed in the most appropriate way possible. The first phase of implementation of the SAT will commence in 2014 with a minimum of 50% of all new entries to the Nursing Homes Support Scheme, Home Care Package and Home Help Schemes assessed by the SAT in the last quarter of 2014, with full implementation of SAT by the end of 2015.