THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) used €100 million assigned to finance the Fair Deal nursing home support scheme for older people for other purposes, Minister for Health James Reilly has said.
The Minister said last night that money would now be brought back from other areas in the health service to pay for the Fair Deal scheme.
He said this would allow for further approvals for long-term care to be granted.
On Wednesday it emerged that the HSE had told hospitals that money allocated for the running of the Fair Deal scheme this year was running out already and it had suspended the approval of new applicants pending clarity in relation to future funding.
At the end of April more than 22,000 older people were receiving financial support under the scheme.
However, last night Dr Reilly said it had become apparent that “money under the Fair Deal subhead was used for ancillary services, for therapies and, indeed, drugs”.
He said as the figures had only come in recently, the Department of Health was unaware that this had been happening last year and that the practice had continued so far in 2011.
“I believe it is only proper that money be brought back from the ancillary services and put back in to the Fair Deal scheme which will allow for the continued processing and approval of people who want to go to nursing homes.”
The Minister said he was not finished with his investigation into the operation of the Fair Deal scheme in the HSE. There were other areas around admission policy and the “assessment tool” that had also to be examined.
Dr Reilly said there was no question that there had been unprecedented demand under the Fair Deal scheme. However, he said there were “some very strange figures coming through from various parts of the HSE”.
He said in some areas 97 patients had been approved under the Fair Deal scheme but this figure had increased to 790 by the following month.
The Minister also said that a high percentage of people went straight from hospitals to long-term care. He suggested that some of these could have gone home instead if appropriate home-care packages had been in place.
Dr Reilly said at this point he was not suggesting that anyone had done anything wrong.
“Through confused messaging, money that belong to one subhead has been spent in other subheads.”
He said he wanted to assure the public that money would be put back into Fair Deal and approvals would continue
The HSE in a statement said that the total budget available to it (€1.01 billion) for long-term residential care had always and would continue to be used exclusively for the care of older people resident in nursing homes.
It said it continued to provide services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy and medicines to nursing home residents who had been in receipt of these services prior to the introduction of the Fair Deal scheme.
“We are currently seeking clarity from the Department of Health in relation to the Minister’s statement in the context of the approved service plan for 2011.”
The HSE service plan is effectively its agreement with the Government on how it spends its €13 billion budget.
It is understood that the clarity it is seeking will centre on how this would have to be amended, and where cuts would be made elsewhere, if it is to put money from other areas into the Fair Deal scheme.
Age Action last night welcomed the announcement by Dr Reilly that the Fair Deal nursing home support scheme is to recommence approving applications.