HSE to examine inspection of nursing homes

The Health Service Executive (HSE) will conduct a State-wide review of how private nursing homes are inspected.

A HSE spokesman told The Irish Times last night that the review would examine whether nursing-home inspections were "sufficiently robust" and whether health authorities were consistent in their assessments of the homes.

The HSE hopes the review findings will be considered as part of the preparation of new legislation governing the nursing-home sector which Minister for Health Mary Harney has promised for autumn.

The review follows concerns about the inspection process after the controversy over Leas Cross Nursing Home in north Co Dublin.

The Minister is understood to have written to the HSE recently expressing concern at revelations that health authorities were not conducting such inspections as frequently as set out in official regulations.

These require inspections at least twice a year.

But it emerged last month in official documents released to Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd that 83 private nursing homes were inspected by health authorities only once last year.

A spokesman for the Department of Health confirmed last night that Ms Harney had written to the HSE stressing "the utmost importance of this target being achieved to ensure the highest standards in private nursing homes".

Ms Harney also told the HSE that she believed it should "prioritise" the nursing-home inspection process.

Meanwhile the representative body for the private nursing homes sector yesterday proposed new minimum staffing levels for the sector.

In a policy paper, the Irish Nursing Home Organisation (INHO) recommended that there be a minimum of one nurse/care assistant for every seven patients on duty during both morning and afternoon shifts, with one nurse/care assistant for every 15 patients at night time.

Paul Costello, the chairman of INHO, said the existing regulations were "too vague" and were not relevant for today's world where some nursing homes can have around 100 beds.

INHO has also called for the abolition of Government tax breaks for the developers of private nursing homes.

Mr Costello told The Irish Times that these capital allowances, which have encouraged the increased development of nursing homes in recent years, had served their purpose.

The organisation, which represents around 25 per cent of private nursing homes, said that the Government should ringfence the money saved to finance the training and development of staff in the sector.