Calls for joint hospital and nursing home consultant posts

Geriatrician posts: The Department of Health is considering proposals which would allow for the joint appointment in future of medical consultants between hospitals and nursing homes.

The Irish Times understands the proposal was put forward by management of Beaumont Hospital in the wake of the controversy over standards at the Leas Cross nursing home in North Dublin.

Under the plan, consultant geriatrician posts would be shared between hospitals and private and public nursing homes.

This would mean that elderly patients in both public and private nursing homes would be able to receive specialist medical care without having to go to hospital.

Under the proposal, consultant geriatricians would hold clinics on the premises of nursing homes.

Most nursing homes currently rely on general practitioners to provide medical services to residents.

However, it has been pointed out in recent months that facilities such as Leas Cross by their very size - with over 100 residents - were becoming, in effect, mini hospitals.

The potential for the development of joint hospital/nursing home consultant posts was set out for the Tánaiste and Minster for Health Mary Harney by senior Beaumont Hospital management at a meeting in the summer.

Beaumont was the closest major acute hospital to Leas Cross nursing home and residents at the facility who became seriously ill were regularly transferred there.

Meanwhile, it is expected that the first of a number of official reports in relation to Leas Cross will be published, at least in part, over the next week or so.

The Tánaiste is today scheduled to meet the family of Peter McKenna, a 60-year-old man with Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease, who died shortly after he was transferred from St Michael's House to Leas Cross.

They will urge her to publish an official report drawn up by Martin Hynes, the former head of the Blood Board which has been held up for several months due to legal difficulties.

In a radio interview at the weekend, Ms Harney said the report of the investigation into Mr McKenna's death should be a public document.

During his short stay at Leas Cross, Mr McKenna missed an appointment at Beaumont Hospital and had to be rushed to the hospital a few days later. He died within hours of blood poisoning.

His family, who did not want him moved to Leas Cross but could do nothing because he was a ward of court, want an investigation.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has also commissioned a separate report into the official inspection process for nursing homes and a separate analysis of the cases of a number of former patients, including several from St Ita's psychiatric hospital in Portrane, who died within a certain period of time after being transferred to Leas Cross.