Time for minimum staffing laws and pay agreement for all Nursing Homes workers
Time for minimum staffing laws and pay agreement for all Nursing Homes workers - The Labour Party
- Time for Government handwringing is over. HIQA review and much needed adult safeguarding legislation is not enough.
- Government must ensure living wage and collective agreement on pay for workers in the sector as recommendations of its 2022 taskforce on workforce planning.
- State must lead on nursing home development and end massive reliance on big business nursing home control.
Questioning the Tánaiste during Leaders’ Questions, Labour health spokesperson Marie Sherlock called out Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s failure to properly plan for and resource Ireland’s care system.
Following harrowing investigative work published by RTÉ, Deputy Sherlock called on Government to take a lead role in developing residential elder care alongside smaller private nursing homes in Ireland, to address staff turnover and quality of care.
Deputy Sherlock said:
“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have effectively handed over the keys of our care system to the for profit, private sector. For well over two decades, a mix of tax exemptions and now the use of REITS has allowed big business to corner a big and growing part of the nursing home sector. RTÉ Investigates showed the raw reality of what is happening in some nursing homes where profit is the driving force behind decision making.
“10 investment funds now own 30% of all beds in the nursing home system, and ESRI research shows that 20% of smaller private nursing homes closed between 2020 and 2022. The reality is that private equity is very much in the driving seat in developing nursing homes in Ireland. This must change.
“Nursing home care is too often propped up by the staff who go the extra mile for those that they care for, yet what we saw on RTÉ shows that our healthcare workers are simply not properly resourced to provide the care and attention needed.
“Nursing homes have no minimum requirements for staff to resident ratios – we know these standards exist in Northern Ireland and in other countries, but not here.
“For those private providers, where profit is the chief motivation, it is inevitable that corners will be cut, that proper staffing will not be in place to provide the best possible care to the vulnerable residents in their care.
“The massive turnover among healthcare assistants reflects the very difficult working conditions and poor pay in the sector. A PWC report on nursing home staff in 2023 found staff turnover rates of healthcare assistances in private nursing homes was as high as 54% in 2022. There is a failure to protect the most valuable resource we have in the care system – care workers.
“The 2020 Covid report into Nursing Homes care highlighted serious failings with nursing home staffing levels and Government’s own Strategic Workforce Advisory Group on Home Carers and Nursing Home Healthcare assistants in 2022 made very clear recommendations on the need for improved pay and collective bargaining for decent pay and conditions in the sector.
“Three years on, unsurprisingly, that report is gathering dust and there are serious questions about who is blocking this.
“There’s been enough words of sympathy from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in the fall out from devastating RTÉ Investigates. What families need to know now is: what will change so that no older person’s care is neglected.
“Minimum staffing levels for nursing homes and decent pay and conditions across every nursing home is absolutely critical to ensuring that older people get the dignity, respect and appropriate care in their final years.”