Latest news with #FairDeal
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Home economics: We are worried Fair Deal may turn out to be a bad deal for us, as Mum's condition has worsened
Our expert answers your property finance questions Today at 21:30 Question My mother has been in hospital for several months while waiting on a nursing home bed, which will shortly become available. We applied for and got Fair Deal, so are not anticipating any issues with the transfer.
The Journal
6 days ago
- Health
- The Journal
RTÉ to air undercover programme showing poor care of people in nursing homes owned by chain
A NEW RTÉ Investigates programme to air tonight goes undercover in a large nursing home chain with locations in Dublin and Laois to expose poor treatment and practice. The programme sees two undercover researchers take up posts in two different nursing homes owned by the company Emeis, formerly known as Orpea, which has come under scrutiny previously for the treatment of residents in its homes in France – leading to legal actions being brought against it which remain underway. It entered the Irish market in 2022 and now operates 27 homes across the country, providing more than 2,700 nursing home beds, many of which are paid for through the HSE's Fair Deal scheme. RTÉ researchers, who were fully qualified as Healthcare assistants, went undercover in two homes operated by the company: the residence Portlaoise, which houses up to 101 residents, and Beneavin Manor, a home in Glasnevin, which cares for up to 115 adults. It costs €1200 a week for someone to stay in the Portlaoise home, and €1400 for them to stay in Beneavin. While the company claims to provide a high standard of care, RTÉ's programme, which The Journal has previewed, shows understaffing leading to older people being in pain while waiting to go to the toilet, multiple residents suffering falls after being left on their own, staff moving people inappropriately when they should be using a hoist, and in one case, a man who asked to be taken to the toilet being told directly by a staff member to pee in his incontinence pad. In another case involving a man with dementia the secret cameras installed by RTÉ shows him being 'roughly handled'. People living in the homes were dressed in inappropriate incontinence wear, left unchanged for hours at a time, and being discovered in wet clothing after they had wet themselves. Emeis told RTÉ investigates that it is not their policy to understaff their homes. In the Portlaoise residence, the programme shows residents being kept in a 'holding area' so the short-staffed team can better supervise them. In Beneavin residents were told they could not go out for a walk because 'nobody' could take them, and one anonymised employee showcases to the RTÉ researcher how to falsify activities reports for the residents, to make it appear as though the residents have been able to enjoy hobbies, when they have not. Distressing footage from two different rooms shows residents crying out for help at night because they need the toilet. In one incident, an elderly, frail woman is seen sitting up on the edge of her bed calling out 'Sister! Sister! Mother!' while she waits for help. In the Beneavin home a man asks to go to the toilet, and has the following interaction with a member of staff: Nurse: [Name], what are you doing? Are you going to wet Advertisement your sheet? We don't have enough sheets, okay? Resident: I know, listen. Nurse: We don't have enough sheets, okay? Resident: I know, listen, listen. Nurse: Yeah, go on. Resident: I have to go to the number one. Nurse: Number one, yeah? Nurse: That's fine, you can. I don't have anyone to help you; so you can wear your pad and we'll change it, okay? You can pee on… can you put your trousers up, yeah? Nurse: You can pee on that, okay? I will then change it, okay? Later, we see staff wake him up loudly around 6am to change his pad. Without washing him, the staff proceed to dress him in his day clothes and leave him in them for the rest of the day; even though he is going back to sleep. Professor David Robinson, a Consult Geriatrician who appears on the programme, said that its findings show 'systemic and institutional lack of consideration for the older person'. Staff members at Emeis-operated nursing homes made protected disclosures to the Health Information and Equality Authority (HIQA), but it took 17 weeks for follow-up inspections to be carried out, the programme reports. In response to the findings in the investigation, Emeis Ireland told RTÉ that the evidence it presented of poor care delivery, improper moving and handling of residents' rights are 'deeply distressing'. The company said it has launched an in-depth review following the programme's findings. 'Inside Ireland's Nursing Homes' airs tonight at 9.35 pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
RTÉ News
6 days ago
- Health
- RTÉ News
Serious care concerns found at leading private nursing home group
Two leading doctors in gerontological care have described as shocking and disturbing undercover footage to be revealed in an RTÉ documentary tonight. It examines standards of care in several residential facilities owned by Ireland's leading provider of private nursing homes. The company at the centre of the allegations, Emeis Ireland – previously known as Orpea – has apologised to residents and their families for the distress caused by the failings identified in the RTÉ report, saying it has launched an in-depth review to immediately address all issues identified. The investigation which focuses on two nursing homes – The Residence Portlaoise and Beneavin Manor in Glasnevin in north Dublin – uncovered multiple examples of care failings and neglect of vulnerable older residents. "This is going to shorten people's lives and the lives that they have will be more miserable because of the situation that they're in," said Consultant Geriatrician Prof David Robinson. "It's abuse – there's no other word for it." Following detailed concerns raised by several whistleblowers, RTÉ Investigates had two undercover researchers simultaneously apply for and secure healthcare assistant roles at the Emeis homes. They both had all the required qualifications and were Garda vetted by RTÉ. At The Residence Portlaoise, where up to 101 residents can be accommodated at a weekly cost of approximately €1,200 per week under the Fair Deal scheme, RTÉ did witness some staff provide good care but more often saw repeated instances of staff shortages impacting daily resident care. The Fair Deal scheme is a state support system that helps cover the cost of nursing home care in Ireland, based on a person's income and assets. This included large groups of residents being congregated together in day rooms, vulnerable older people being left unsupervised resulting in resident falls and day-to-day requests going unattended to for lengthy periods of time such as pleas to be put to bed or use the toilet. "What we're looking at is largely institutional abuse and this is neglect in a setting which is supposed to be caring," Prof Robinson added. RTÉ's undercover carer also witnessed multiple examples of poor manual handling with older residents frequently lifted under the arms and without the required use of proper handling equipment contrary to best practice. On some occasions staff were hampered by a lack of available equipment, while in one instance management also instructed healthcare assistants not to use hoisting equipment in public areas for fear their poor technique would be seen by visitors. "The shocking disappointing thing to me is that someone who clearly has an identified need in order to assist his transfers and mobility is not provided with the means by which that can occur," Consultant Geriatrician Rónán Collins told RTÉ Investigates. "This patient needs this piece of equipment to be able to stand up safely and the equipment is not in his room – it should be in his room." In Dublin's Beneavin Manor, which can provide care for up to 115 adults for approximately €1,400 per week with Fair Deal funding, another RTÉ researcher saw similar patterns of staff under pressure. Here, despite regulations stating nursing homes must provide opportunities for residents to engage in activities, this rarely happened on the floor where RTÉ's carer worked. Staff also faced constant challenges when it came to the supply of essential resources with recurring shortages of basic items such as towels, bedsheets, sanitary wipes and gloves. "It's pretty shocking to be honest with you," Prof Collins said. "Really one would have to ask in terms of supply chains why staff don't have access to the equipment to do their job appropriately?" "In healthcare what causes burnout is people who go to work and come home day after day feeling frustrated because they're unable to provide the level of care they knew they should be providing or wanted to provide," Prof Collins added. At Beneavin Manor, RTÉ also witnessed the inappropriate handling of vulnerable residents with frail older people sometimes moved by their clothing instead of using the correct handling equipment mandated in their care plans. "There's no regard for the person," Prof David Robinson said on seeing RTÉ's footage. "It's prioritising expediency and expediency of care over the person's dignity and it's just not appropriate," Prof Robinson added. Having witnessed repeated poor practices, RTÉ Investigates had both researchers hand in their notice and report all their concerns to management at the nursing homes and to the regulatory body, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA). HIQA told RTÉ both The Residence Portlaoise and Beneavin Manor have set out compliance plans to address issues at their homes with reports from recent inspections of both centres currently being finalised. In a statement, Emeis Ireland said the evidence of poor care delivery, improper moving and handling of residents, and a lack of dignity and breaches of residents' rights are deeply distressing, adding that it does not tolerate any individual or systemic neglect or practices. Offering its sincere apologies, the company said this is not the standard of care they expect and not what residents and their families deserve. Emeis added it is fully committed to doing everything in its power to ensure the failings do not recur. This will include, according to the statement, a thorough examination of the management and oversight of medical supplies, housekeeping products and continence supplies across all its nursing homes. It is also to review staffing allocations at both The Residence Portlaoise and Beneavin Manor.
Irish Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Will equity release prevent you getting approved for Fair Deal?
If I choose to release equity in my home, what might happen to State contributions under Fair Deal if my nieces and nephews have to wheel me off to a high-security care home? I'm now 74 and might over-indulge if my bank account gets healthily inflated by one of these loans. I thought I heard something over the last few years about the HSE being unhelpful about care home contributions if the main asset has been diminished by a loan? Ms GB It's a good point. Equity release may be an attractive proposition for some people, as may Fair Deal, but there is a risk as they are both feeding from the same pond – in this case, the equity in your home. READ MORE Fair Deal, which regular readers will be familiar with, is a system that subsidises the cost of long-term nursing home for residents, according to their means. There are three elements – a portion of your income; a portion of your savings or assets; and, finally, a portion of the value of your home. This last one is the only thing we are concerned with here. If you are the sole occupier of the home, you are liable to pay 7.5 per cent of its value for the first three years of your residence in a nursing home, after which there is no further charge against your home. If you are a couple, the charge is halved to 3.75 per cent per year for the three years. If your spouse or partner needs to go into care, they pay the balance. Let's assume for the purposes of this piece that you live in Rathfarnham, in South Dublin County Council, where the median house price is €426,000. On that basis, your 7.5 per cent contribution would come to €31,950 a year – or close to €96,000 over the three years. As with any mortgage, the bank will fix a charge against your home to ensure it gets its money back. Most people availing of Fair Deal do not have that sort of cash available to them. So what they do is this: they apply for a Nursing Home Loan. This covers the contribution due on the family home with the money being paid from the sale of the property down the line, or after their death. Naturally, the HSE wants to be sure of getting its cash back if it is advancing you that sort of money. And the way it does this is by taking a charge on your home. When the house is sold, the transaction cannot be completed until anyone with a charge on the property has that charge satisfied, so Revenue – which will be collecting on the loan on behalf of the HSE – is confident that it can recover the money lent to the nursing home resident. The issue here, of course, is that any money you tap through equity release is also going to be subject to a charge against the property. How big that charge will be depends, of course, on what form of equity release you choose and the amount that you borrow. As we noted recently in an On The Money newsletter, there are now several different models for equity release. Several of these follow the traditional repayment model. The advantage here to the homeowner is that you are availing of a mortgage interest rate that will be lower than any rate you would get on borrowings by way of a personal loan. But, as with any mortgage, the bank will fix a charge against your home to ensure it gets its money back. If you borrow, say, €100,000 against that home which is valued at €426,000 in Dublin, there should be no issue, as there is plenty of equity for all comers. Repayment mortgages, of course, make sense only for people who can make the regular repayments – or have someone make those payments for them. When you're retired – and at 74, most of us would hope to be! – you're unlikely to have that repayment capacity. It can be very difficult to get Fair Deal if you have an equity release mortgage on your home, especially a lifeloan-type product That's where something like Spry Finance/Seniors Money's lifeloan comes in. Its big attraction is that you do not need to make any repayments during your lifetime. The downside of this is that the interest bill keeps mounting in the background, which means the amount due can be a multiple of what you originally took out in the loan, if you survive long enough. If you borrow €100,000 through a lifeloan, the amount repayable 10 years later will be close to double that, thanks to the joys of compound interest, and not far short of three times the amount borrowed in 15 years - which is why you need to think very carefully before going down this route. As a result, unsurprisingly, Spry Finance insists that there are no mortgages outstanding on any home it lends against. If there are, you will have to consolidate that amount in any loan you have taken, which could make for very expensive borrowings. Its promise to you is that the outstanding loan balance will never amount to more than the value of your home. But that is little consolation to the HSE and Revenue, which need to make sure that 22.5 per cent of the equity is available to them to repay any loan under Fair Deal. This is why it can be very difficult to get Fair Deal if you have an equity release mortgage on your home, especially a lifeloan-type product. If you are the sole occupier of the home, you are liable to pay 7.5 per cent of its value for the first three years of your residence in a nursing home However, Spry does now offer a feature where you can pay 6.8 per cent interest on your loan instead of the standard 6.7 per cent, and ringfence 20 per cent of the value of the property from exposure to the lifeloan. That gets you most of the way to the 22.5 per cent required under Fair Deal. However, you would still need to reassure the HSE and Revenue that you, or some guarantor, was good for the remaining 2.5 per cent of the property's value – €10,725 in our example – before they would consider extending Fair Deal to you. And, of course, in the absence of Fair Deal, you will be stuck with private nursing home charges of between €5,000 and €8,000 a month depending on location. So is it possible to get Fair Deal with equity release? Yes, but it is very difficult– and the HSE's initial position will almost inevitably be to refuse, unless you can show it where the money will come from to repay any Fair Deal loan. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
Agriland
21-05-2025
- Business
- Agriland
Listen: AgriFocus - Fair Deal and the family farm
Listen: AgriFocus – Fair Deal and the family farm May 21, 2025 5:06 pm In this episode of AgriFocus Francess McDonnell is joined by Ann Griffin, regional advocate for the north-west with Sage Advocacy – which is the National Advocacy Service for Older People – to chat about what happens to the family farm if an older person needs to consider nursing home care. According to Ann Griffin there can be a deep fear among some farmers and their families about what it will mean for the future of the farm if they sign up to the Nursing Homes Support Scheme, also known as the Fair Deal – which provides financial support to help pay for the cost of nursing home care. The regional advocate said that some people fear this will mean the end of the farm, but she said this is not the case. She told the AgriFocus podcast that under the Fair Deal scheme an individual pays a certain amount towards the total cost of nursing home care and the HSE then pays the remainder. This is based on the HSE carrying out a financial assessment to work out how much an individual may need to pay towards their nursing home care and this is based on their income and their assets. There are two types of assets assessed – cash assets and non-cash assets – which includes a person's home, any land they may own and farms. There is a 3-year cap limit on how much a person pays towards nursing home care as part of the Fair Deal scheme – that includes homes, farms and businesses – but there are also conditions which Ann has advised older people must be aware of. During this episode of the AgriFocus the regional advocate for Sage Advocacy also highlighted some of the key issues facing people who getting older in rural Ireland today.
