Advice on patients' accounts sought

The Department of Health is to seek the advice of the Attorney General on how and when health authorities can levy charges or retain interest payments to cover administrative costs incurred in holding millions of euro on behalf of patients in their care.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (Pac) heard yesterday that since Christmas around €15 million in additional funds had flowed into patients' personal property accounts, largely as a result of the €2,000 ex gratia payments made by the Government to patients who had money illegally deducted for care in public nursing homes.

The committee was told that various health boards had different practices for recouping the costs of administering these accounts, largely based on differing opinion on the nature of their legal relationship with patients in these circumstances.

Some health authorities retained interest generated by these accounts while others levied charges.

Pac chairman Michael Noonan said there were "disturbing echoes" of the nursing home charge scandal as no definitive legal advice on the issue had been sought from the Attorney General.

The secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, told the committee he would now seek advice from the Attorney General.

The director of finance at the Health Service Executive,Diarmuid Collins, said that in the past health boards had autonomy to manage patients' accounts in their own way but that now a unified system would be put in place.