Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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958. To ask the Minister for Health if he will initiate an immediate public enquiry into the Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41430/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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HIQA, in discharging its duties, determines, through examination of all information available to it including site inspections, whether a nursing homes meets the regulations in order to achieve and maintain its registration status. Should a nursing home be deemed to be non-compliant with the Regulations and the National Quality Standards, it may either fail to achieve or lose its registration status. In addition, the Chief Inspector has wide discretion in deciding whether to impose conditions of Registration on nursing homes.

The Deputy will be aware that the Nursing Homes Expert Panel was established, on foot of a NPHET recommendation, to examine the complex issues surrounding the management of COVID-19 among this particularly vulnerable cohort. This Expert Panel report 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. HIQA and the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) recently jointly published an “Analysis of factors associated with outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 in nursing homes in Ireland”, delivering on recommendation 6.7 of the Expert Panel report, to further the learning from the pandemic. Further data analysis work and learning will also continue, in line with other recommendations of the Expert Panel, although these have been affected by the recent cyberattack on the health system. Many of the short- and medium-term recommendations have already been implemented.

Work to progress the recommendations of the Nursing Home Expert Panel report, particularly those recommendations requiring a priority focus in the response to COVID-19, is ongoing across all of the health agencies and stakeholders. Continued learning and understanding of progression of the disease in Ireland is an integral part of those recommendations.

At a broader level, there has been significant and ongoing consideration of this impact since the start of the pandemic, with various examinations and development of reports with a focus on COVID-19, its impact on nursing homes and the pandemic learnings that can inform future policy, regulation and the model of care for older persons. There has been a very clear national commitment to continue to learn from the pandemic as the national and international understanding of the virus evolves, and where necessary to ensure that the public health-led approach evolves, as evidence and learning materialises. Findings of these reports confirm that the very infectious nature of COVID-19 makes it difficult to prevent and control in residential care settings. The reports produced nationally identify findings consistent with international evidence, which have highlighted that the probability of COVID-19 introduction into nursing home depends on the levels of the disease circulating in the community, with a higher risk associated with higher incidence rates in the community.

While significant progress is being made in relation to the roll-out of the vaccination programme, and the current situation in nursing homes is broadly stable, the prevalence of the more transmissible Delta variant has rapidly increased in Ireland and this poses a significant risk, in particular to those who are not yet fully protected though vaccination. It must be recognised that the pandemic has not concluded and at this time a priority focus of Government remains on the ongoing management of the COVID-19 response, to ensure that the positive gains now been experienced are preserved, and that those most vulnerable to the virus continue to be safeguarded, having regard to the residual risk.

The Government is continuing to look at options which may be available to the State in relation to listening to the voices of those who have lost a loved one.