Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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814. To ask the Minister for Health the solutions found by the HSE social care division to the current regulatory requirements in order to protect public bed capacity which is vital to support the acute hospital system. [54927/17]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Community Nursing Units are an essential part of our national infrastructure of nursing homes. They provide over 5,000 long stay residential care beds and about 2,000 short-stay public beds providing step-up, step-down care; intermediate care; and rehabilitation and respite care. The public centres providing short-stay beds are a mixture of stand-alone centres and centres with separate wings for rehabilitation /respite etc.

While the care delivered to residents in our community hospitals is generally of a very high standard, many of these services are delivered in buildings that are less than ideal in the modern context. It is important therefore that we upgrade our public bed stock and this is the aim of the five year Capital Investment Programme for Community Nursing Units which was announced in 2016. This provides the framework to allow for an enhanced programme to replace, upgrade and refurbish these care facilities, as appropriate. Significant work has been undertaken by the HSE in determining the most appropriate scheduling of projects over the 5 year period from 2016 to 2021, within the phased provision of funding, to achieve compliance and registration with HIQA.