Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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1690. To ask the Minister for Health the number of deaths in nursing homes in December, January and February of each year from 2017 to date in 2021, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18679/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Chief Inspector for Social Services, HIQA, is the national independent regulator of nursing homes.

Under Section 31 (2) of the Health Act 2007 (Care and Welfare of Residents in Designated Centres for Older People) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 415/213) Nursing Home providers are required to notify the Chief Inspector of the unexpected death of any resident within 72 hours of that death occurring. The table below set out the number of ‘unexpected deaths’ notified to the Chief Inspector for the specified time periods.

Providers are also required to notify the Chief Inspector of the number of ‘expected deaths’ which occurred in their nursing home at the end of each quarter.

HIQA has advised my Department that two caveats apply to the data in table 2. They do not include those notifications submitted via post and providers have until the end of this month to submit notifications for expected deaths in January, February and March for the first quarter of 2021. As such, this information is not yet available.

HIQA has further advised my Department that prior to 2018 information on ‘expected deaths’ was not received or stored in a format germane to an answer in tabular form.