Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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178. To ask the Minister for Health the measures that will be introduced to eliminate the differential in payments to nursing homes across different geographical areas under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52112/22]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Funding to support people to access long-term residential care is provided in line with the long-established statutory mechanisms under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009. This is the mechanism established by the Oireachtas to provide for the processes relating to funding under the NHSS and the negotiation of prices for services for private and voluntary providers with the designated State agency, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). Maximum prices for individual nursing homes are agreed with the NTPF following negotiations and based on the NTPF’s cost criteria. These criteria include:

- Costs reasonably incurred by the nursing home

- Local market prices

- Historic prices

- Overall budgetary capacity

The NTPF carry out this role independently under the NHSS Act 2009 and there is no role for Ministers or the Department in these negotiations. However, the Department continues to work with the NTPF to take forward the recommended actions that emerged from the review of the NTPF pricing system published in June 2021.

At present, the NTPF has regard to prices at county level when assessing ‘local market price’ (one of the 4 criteria outlined directly above, that is used in determining a nursing home’s agreed maximum price). However, disparities within a county (particularly between urban and rural areas) can mean that such prices do not always reflect the reality of local variations in cost. In this recommendation, the NTPF proposed undertaking a formal assessment of an alternative model where the local market price would be based on the prices of nursing homes within a specific radius, rather than at county level. 

Substantial progress has been made on this recommendation, with systems developed that will allow an accurate estimate of the overall price impact of an alternative geographical pricing model. Once these systems have been put in place, a report will be submitted to the Minister for Health making further recommendations on implementing changes to the pricing system.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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179. To ask the Minister for Health if all sections of the Nursing Home Supports Scheme (Amendment) Act 2021 have been commenced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52358/22]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Nursing Homes Support Scheme (Amendment) Act 2021, which was signed into law on July 22nd by President Higgins, introduced safeguards in the NHSS to further protect the viability and sustainability of family farms and businesses. The principal amendment of this Act ensures that where the owners of farms and businesses go into long-term residential care, their contributions against those assets will be capped at 3 years, providing that a named family successor commits to running the asset for a period of six years and certain other conditions are met. 

The legislation also extended the three-year cap on contributions from the value of a person's principal residence to the proceeds of sale of that residence, so that a person will be able to sell their home without incurring additional fees from the fourth year onwards. This delivered action 18.7 of the Government's Housing for All Strategy. 

The amended legislation has been fully operational since 20 October 2021.