Nobody who is currently in a nursing home will have to pay more for their care as a result of a new Government policy on the funding of long-term care, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said.
Details of the new policy are to be announced next week but Ms Harney confirmed yesterday it will make provision for increased nursing home subvention payments. Some €85 million has been provided in the Budget for improved subventions in 2007.
Ms Harney has repeatedly said there has to be greater equity between the amount those in private and public nursing homes have to pay for their care, but she would not elaborate yesterday on how this will be done.
Equity-release schemes and deferred-payment schemes were among a number of options contained in an inter-departmental report considered by the Government when drawing up its plan. But Ms Harney insisted yesterday nobody going into care will have to sell their home.
At present the Government funds 90 per cent of the cost of care in public nursing homes, with individuals asked for 80 per cent of their old-age pension, but sometimes those in private nursing homes have to fund their care entirely from their own resources, unless they get a subvention. Some have had to sell their houses to fund their care.
"What the Government have decided . . . is to bring greater clarity, equity and fairness and from here on in, people in public and private facilities will be treated on the same basis and I will be making a major announcement about that on Monday," she said.
She added: "Nobody in residential care at the moment will have their position disimproved." The changes are expected to apply to those going into nursing care in future.
She made her comments when announcing more details of how the extra €335 million given to her department in the Budget on Wednesday will be spent. Ms Harney said VAT of 21 per cent on home care services provided by private suppliers will be removed from January 1st.
And she said some of the additional money will go on 780,000 extra hours of home help, 1,100 extra day places, 2,000 extra home care packages and close to 800 extra long-term care beds for older people. Some 350 of these beds will be contracted from private nursing homes (200 of them in the greater Dublin area, 100 in the south and 40 in the west). The rest will be public beds.
Meanwhile, some €3 million has been set aside to strengthen nursing home inspections next year and Ms Harney said the long-awaited legislation, which will provide for an independent nursing home inspectorate, is to be published next week.
In terms of other services, she said €2.5 million was being provided to set up sexual assault treatment units in Galway and Tullamore, as well as to train 24 nurses in forensic testing.
And funding is provided for the establishment of nurse-led services to treat 20,000 patients with chronic diseases in the community, for more primary care teams, and to implement the report of the sudden cardiac death taskforce.
She admitted putting up the cost of private beds in public hospitals by 25 per cent would add about 6 per cent to the cost of private health insurance.
Meanwhile, Minister of State with responsibility for mental health Tim O'Malley said €7.9 million had been set aside for the development of child and adolescent psychiatric services. He said he wasn't satisfied and nobody could be satisfied at the inordinate delays and bureaucracy some families had to endure to get help for youngsters with mental health problems.