‘€200 per resident a week needed’ by nursing homes
Reports warns private operators must get funding to avert crisis in the sector
PRIVATE nursing home operators need another €200 per resident per week in funding, to prevent more from closing and triggering a crisis in the sector, it has been claimed.
In a report being published today, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has noted that between February 2020 and December 2022, almost one in five of all smaller private nursing homes closed.
The Government think tank said most of the closures of such homes, with less than 30 beds, happened in rural areas.
It also noted that Ireland’s nursing home sector was increasingly reliant on a small number of profit-driven operators, financed by international private equity.
With a growing and ageing population, demand for such homes is projected to increase in the coming years.
The ESRI found that since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, almost every county in the land has seen a decline in nursing home beds, with 386 fewer beds in the system nationwide.
However, Dublin and commuter belt counties have bucked this trend and have seen increases, driven by the opening of those larger private nursing homes.
Those counties now have the highest supply of nursing home beds per person aged over 65, while counties such as Laois, Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Kerry and Leitrim have the lowest.
Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) chief Tadhg Daly welcomed the report, but warned even the larger private operators were now struggling to make ends meet and had paused plans for expansion.
Mr Daly said: ‘Confidence is seeping away from the sector, and we welcome the ESRI talking about the need for a policy setting out how we are going to meet the current and future needs.’
He said the NHI’s pre-budget submission had called for an additional €201 per resident, per week, equating to a €191million increase in the Fair Deal budget, to bring into effect fees which balanced the reality of resident care costs.
He said analysis undertaken by PwC had found that operational costs within the nursing home sector had increased by 36% over a five-year period.
Without such funding increases, nursing homes would continue to struggle for survival and more closures will arise, he forecast.
The Government committed an additional €45million to nursing home care in the budget but Mr Daly said this was not enough.
The ESRI found in its report that 74% of all nursing beds are now provided in private homes, and 14 large private operators now provide approximately 40% of all such beds nationally.
Two-thirds of all long-term residential care beds in Meath, Monaghan and Laois are now provided by large private operators.
The think tank said there were major disparities in Fair Deal funding to private and voluntary homes compared to the more generous fees being paid to the State’s own homes.
General inflation between 2020 and 2022 had significantly outpaced the Fair Deal funding increases made to private nursing homes, the ESRI said, and the sector was at a ‘critical juncture’, requiring Government action to prevent further closures.
The ESRI said regional inequalities are likely to increase further based on planning data showing that, by the end of 2024, private equity-funded owners and operators were set to open several other large facilities, all situated in counties with already high numbers of beds.