From Department of Health
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Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD and the Minister for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler TD, have today welcomed funding to further support nursing homes to enhance and create additional safe visiting spaces.
Given the importance of facilitating visiting over the Winter period and over Christmas, the Temporary Assistance Payment Scheme (TAPS) has been expanded on a once-off basis to allow a claim of up to €2,500 per eligible nursing home. This will enable them to create additional safe visiting spaces and enhance current visiting spaces.
Up to €1.125m is now being made available through the €92.5 million 2020 TAPS sanction for this once-off winter claim. In total, up to €134.5 million has been made available to the scheme for 2020 and 2021.
Visiting to nursing homes throughout this pandemic has been restricted in order to protect those living and working in the homes. Outdoor and window visiting provides a valuable supplement to appropriately managed indoor visiting however as the winter progresses outdoor options, including window visiting, become more challenging.
Some nursing homes have started to take creative steps to develop safe, comfortable internal and external spaces to address these challenges. It is the department’s expectation that nursing home providers will continue to provide and invest in such measures.
Speaking today, Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD said:
“As we move into the Christmas season, I know that many people living in nursing homes will want to spend as much time as possible with their families. It has been a very hard year, especially for those living in nursing homes. I am glad that the recently updated guidelines on visiting now allow for some visiting at every level of restrictions. Of course, the health and safety of people living and working in nursing homes is the priority and so it is important that these visits can take place in a safe environment that is as comfortable as possible. I know that many nursing homes have shown a strong track record throughout the pandemic in being creative in how they can facilitate visits within public health guidance and I am pleased to support those efforts.”
Joining Minister Donnelly in welcoming the expansion of the Scheme, Minister of State with responsibility for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler TD said:
“I strongly encourage nursing home providers to do everything that they can to facilitate visiting within nursing homes. It is so important for people living in nursing homes to have regular contact with their families and friends, especially at this time of year. I urge nursing homes to take advantage of the supports that are being made available to them, to allow as much visiting as possible under the public health guidance and to work towards the restoration of internal visiting in nursing homes."
Enhancement of safe visiting spaces is aligned with the overriding aim of TAPS, which is to support nursing homes in keeping residents safe and reduce the risk of infection and transmission into the nursing home. It is recognised that residents and their families will prioritise visiting over this period and these spaces will provide for these visits to be undertaken in a way that reduces the health and other risks of outdoor visiting on residents and their visitors, who may themselves be older and more vulnerable.
Since 7 December, each nursing home resident can have one visitor a week in Level 3 and 4. In Level 5, they can have one visitor every two weeks.
ENDS
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented challenge across our health services with a significant impact on nursing homes. The priority focus is to ensure that our nursing home residents are protected.
The Temporary Assistance Payments Scheme, also known as TAPS, is an essential component of a suite of financial and non-financial supports being provided to private and voluntary nursing homes to support their preparedness in relation to COVID-19, and to manage outbreaks, if and when they present.
TAPS was established to provide financial assistance to contribute towards the costs incurred by private nursing homes in acting to suppress and manage COVID-19. To date, nearly €60 million has been paid out to nursing homes.
The central focus of the response to COVID-19 has been to control the spread of the virus in so far as possible to protect those who are most vulnerable from infection, as well as protecting against causes, situations, circumstances, and behaviours that may lead to the spread of COVID-19.
Residents of nursing homes are vulnerable because of their age, underlying medical conditions, the extent of their requirement for direct care involving close physical contact and the nature of living in congregated settings.
The very infectious nature of COVID-19 makes it difficult to prevent and control in residential care settings. The transmission of the virus into and within nursing homes is multifactorial. As identified by the Nursing Homes Expert Panel, where there is ongoing community transmission, settings like nursing homes are more vulnerable to exposure.
While nursing homes were particularly impacted by COVID-19, many remained COVID-19 free and many who did experience an outbreak managed very well.
The State’s responsibility to respond to the public health emergency created the need for the HSE to stand up a structured support system in line with NPHET recommendations. This has been a critical intervention in supporting the resilience of the sector in meeting the unprecedented challenges associated with COVID-19.
These supports remain in place and have encompassed:
The new guidance aims to further support long-term residential care services (including nursing homes) and residents in planning visits across all levels of the framework for restrictive measures in the government’s Plan for Living with COVID-19. The new guidance also includes further advice recognising that major cultural or religious festivals, such as Christmas, are of significance for residents and their families.
This new guidance outlines an updated definition for ‘critical and compassionate circumstances’, which now provides that residents may be facilitated to receive:
It also notes that at all framework levels every practical effort should be made to accommodate an additional visit on compassionate grounds during the period of a major cultural or religious festival or celebration of particular significance to the resident, such as the Christmas/New Year period.