Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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1928. To ask the Minister for Health the status of the work of the Nursing Homes Expert Panel Report Implementation Oversight Team; when the Implementation Oversight Team will publish its final report; if the final report will include a plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the Nursing Homes Expert Panel Report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35881/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Nursing Homes Expert Panel was established, on foot of a National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) recommendation, to examine the complex issues surrounding the management of COVID-19 among this particularly vulnerable cohort. The Expert Panel report, which was published in August 2020, has added further to our knowledge and learning. This report clearly outlines the key protective measures that we must ensure are in place across our nursing homes. These actions are based on learning from our own and the international experience of COVID-19 to date. The report also recommends additional analysis and examination of the relevant public health and other data sets in order that further causal and protective factors for COVID-19 clusters are identified.

Work to progress the recommendations of the Expert Panel report, particularly those recommendations requiring a priority focus in the response to COVID-19, is ongoing across health agencies and stakeholders. The recommendations of the report are varied and complex, requiring a mix of ongoing operational response to COVID-19 and longer-term strategic reform. Those strategic reforms are, by their nature, complex and relate to whole of system issues. It is important to note that any such reforms require careful consideration and substantial policy development work. In the case of some recommendations, major legislative reform is required, something that must be approached in a measured and considerate way, to ensure reforms are delivered as intended.

Two progress reports have been published to date, with the third report due to be completed shortly. These reports are available on the COVID-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel Report: Implementation Oversight Team webpage at www.gov.ie/en/publication/c7f5b-covid-19-nursing-homes-expert-panel-report-implementation-oversight-team/

Continued learning and understanding of progression of the disease in Ireland is an integral part of those recommendations. Residents of nursing homes are vulnerable because of their age, underlying medical conditions, the extent of their requirement for direct care involving close physical contact and the nature of living in congregated settings. The very infectious nature of COVID-19 makes it difficult to prevent and control in residential care settings. The transmission of the virus into and within nursing homes is multifactorial. As identified by the Nursing Homes Expert Panel, where there is ongoing community transmission, settings like nursing homes are more vulnerable to exposure.

The State’s responsibility to respond to the public health emergency created the need to set up a structured support system in line with NPHET recommendations. This has been a critical intervention in supporting the resilience of the sector in meeting the unprecedented challenges associated with COVID-19. The Expert Panel highlighted the value of those supports and recommended their continuation. These supports continue to be provided.

The range of supports provided to nursing homes include:

- Enhanced HSE engagement

- Multidisciplinary clinical supports at CHO level through 23 COVID-19 Response Teams

- Supply of precautionary and enhanced PPE, free of charge

- Where possible, access to staff from community and acute hospitals

- Suite of focused public health guidance and training resources

- Temporary accommodation to nursing home staff to support measures to block the chain of transmission

- HIQA implemented a Regulatory Assessment Framework of the preparedness of designated centres for older people for a COVID-19 outbreak and published an Infection Prevention and Control Assurance Framework for Nursing Homes

The Expert Panel endorsed these range of supports and measures and highlighted the importance of their continuation over the 18 months identified in the Panel’s report. These measures continue to be an important component of the COVID-19 response and will continue to be in place for the foreseeable future.

The Implementation Oversight Team has agreed that all stakeholders should continue to intensify their efforts to progress implementation over the coming period with a view to completing implementation of recommendations to the greatest extent possible, and in respect of those longer-term recommendations requiring specific programmes of work, that suitable pathways and processes are identified to ensure the mainstreaming of implementation into wider reform processes once the formal NHEP Implementation structures are concluded.