HEALTH AUTHORITIES negotiated a cut-price deal with Leas Cross nursing home to take highly dependent residents from a local psychiatric hospital, it has emerged. Leas Cross nursing home agreed with the Northern Area Health Board to supply 14 beds for one year for the price of just 12, at a weekly cost of about €663 per bed in 2003. In contrast, smaller nursing homes taking high-dependency residents at the time were charging the health board up to €738 per bed.
This transfer of residents coincides with the period when standards at the home went into decline, according to the commission of investigation report into Leas Cross. Records show a significant number of residents went on to suffer dehydration and bedsores. The commission did not find any evidence that contracts for care were agreed between the nursing home and St Ita’s psychiatric hospital.
Gráinne Conway, who was matron of Leas Cross at the time, told the commission that families of patients in contract beds were “totally unwilling to sign contracts of care for fear they may have to pay for the service”.
On the issue of the transfer of residents from St Ita’s to Leas Cross, the commission said it was unable to establish who made the final decision to use the nursing home. While a consultant psychiatrist at the hospital claimed that management at the health board advised on the suitability of the location, members of management claimed that clinical teams made the decision.
“It appears that no-one is willing to accept ultimate responsibility for the decision to use Leas Cross for the discharge of a large group of patients from St Ita’s. The documentation made available to the commission is equally inconclusive on the issue,” the report says. Overall, the report found supervision of the home by the health board and the Health Service Executive was seriously lacking. It found that even when the health board had a serious complaint on hand in relation to the home, it re-registered it in 2004 before actually investigating the complaint.
Serious staffing deficits at the home, which was forced to close in 2005, was one its main problems, the investigation found. The health board had allowed it to expand without sufficient staff.
The report also reveals that the nursing home made operating profits of about €1.6 million between 2000 and 2005. However, the owner of the home, John Aherne, has had to pay back €1.2 million in capital allowances to the State. This was because he had availed of a tax-incentive scheme but the home closed before the seven years were up.