Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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193. To ask the Minister for Health when a full reply will issue to a letter written by this Deputy on 5 May 2015 on behalf of a person (details supplied); the reason no full reply issued in this case, despite two letters from him dated 13 May 2015 and 7 July 2015 stating that the matter was receiving attention; what he considers is an adequate amount of attention and time to consider a letter before a reply issues; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29299/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The delays in responding to your representations are regretted. The Department has, to date, received in excess of 130 reps in relation to nursing and midwifery matters which require input from State Agencies and in many cases, the matter would be required to be researched in order to provide a comprehensive reply. I have arranged that a reply to the reps referred to in your question be prepared as a matter of urgency. In the interim, I have also set out as follows the position in relation to the matters raised in your reps.

Each year approximately 1,500 nurses complete the nursing degree programme in Ireland. This is the number seen as necessary to maintain nursing numbers at the level required to support service delivery. Retention of these graduates in the Irish health system, due to the moratorium on recruitment, which resulted in a fall of about 4,500 in nursing numbers between 2007 and the middle of 2013, has been an issue.

In the intervening period and to date, other jurisdictions outside of Ireland, most notably the UK, are actively recruiting. UK recruitment campaigns offer highly competitive employment packages with attractive terms and conditions along with in-built educational and professional development opportunities. Therefore a fundamental issue facing our health system is our ability to compete with such attractive nurse employment packages in an effort to retain Irish nurse graduates.

The HSE have been working on the design of an international nurse recruitment campaign. It is intended that this will be a high profile initiative focusing on the UK market to encourage Irish trained nurses home.

There are a number of strategies to support the retention of our current graduate nurses/midwives in the Irish health system. In addition significant support for education opportunities along with regularisation of nursing and midwifery acting positions are all designed to contribute to stabilising the nursing resource.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI), following assessment of qualifications by an applicant, may require an applicant nurse or midwife to undertake a period of adaptation and assessment, which if required, must be successfully completed as a pre-requisite to registration. In 2014 the HSE facilitated 151 nurses to complete a period of adaptation. There are 2 remaining HSE adaptation courses available this year in June and August. These courses are 6-12 weeks in duration and facilitate the integration of global nurses to nursing in an Irish context.

Outside of the current provision for placements in 2015 – there are 293 requests for placements by employers. These numbers are not reflective of a national total as some hospital sites have also run independent adaptation programmes.

A collaborative group established by the HSE that includes representatives of both the Department of Health and Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) continue to explore options to facilitate adaptation and thereby registration with NMBI. A meeting between these parties to discuss the current issues has taken place and options are being actively explored.

The RCSI on behalf of the NMBI are currently consulting on the possibility of developing an alternative approach to the adaptation programme. This however is not a short-term solution.

Pending the outcomes of these consultations and possible subsequent development of an alternative to the current adaptation process there remains a requirement to provide adaptation programmes. Options in this regard are under consideration by the office of the Nursing and Midwifery Services Director in the HSE.