OWNERS OF nursing homes are passing on a €190 annual fee for nursing-home inspections to residents despite a warning by the State’s care standards watchdog that the practice contravenes official regulations.
Long-stay care providers are obliged to pay a charge for each resident since the Health Information Quality Authority (Hiqa) took over the role of inspecting nursing homes last July.
In response to a large number of queries from residents and their families, the authority has posted an information note on its website stating that the fee should only be paid by nursing-home providers.
“The payment of the fee is a matter between the nursing-home providers and the authority,” the note says.
“The fee is not due, or payable, by individual residents or families.”
It adds that nursing home residents may only be charged fees set out in a contract agreed between a nursing-home operator and a resident.
These contracts are typically agreed on an annual basis and must be agreed between a resident and a nursing home within a month of admission to the home.
However, the main representative group for nursing-home operators, Nursing Homes Ireland, said it would continue to advise its members to charge residents for the inspection fee. Tadgh Daly of Nursing Homes Ireland said: “Our position is that this is a levy imposed by the Government and the Minister for Health has previously said she expected these fees would be passed on to residents.”
Mr Daly was referring to a press conference last March of this year, when Minister for Health Mary Harney announced details of the new inspections regime.
When asked by a journalist whether she was concerned that the fee would be passed on to residents, Ms Harney said: “I accept that it’s in line with what happens in Scotland and the UK and I know nursing homes pay €65 per bed to their own association.
“So, it’s three times higher than that, I accept that, but I believe at €3.73 per week, it is an appropriate fee that is necessary in order to ensure these standards are enforced . . . clearly, it will be passed on, I accept that.”
The annual fee is set out by regulations made under the Health Act, 2007. This states that the “fee is payable directly to the authority by the registered provider”.
It says the registered provider, or nursing-home operator, must pay the €190 fee in three equal instalments, on January 1st, May 1st and September 1st each year.
Age Action Ireland yesterday said it was opposed to any attempt to try to charge residents the inspection fee.
Eamon Timmins, the group’s spokesman, said: “If the TV licence went up, do you automatically pass that on? As far as we’re concerned, the inspection fee is an operating cost which residents should not have to pay.”
It is unclear who will bear the cost of the fees once the new system of financing nursing home care – known as the “fair deal” scheme – come into force later this month.
Under this scheme, every person in need of residential care who applies for financial support will make a personal contribution, limited to 80 per cent of their disposable income.
The State, on the other hand, will meet 70 per cent of the cost of long- term care, with personal contributions covering the balance.