Written answer
National Treatment Purchase Fund
The NTPF independently negotiates nursing home prices using costs, local and historic prices, and budget capacity, with shorter contracts helping align rates with cost pressures.
3298. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Health the criteria and methodology used by the National Treatment Purchase Fund in negotiating prices with private and voluntary nursing homes under the nursing homes support scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55711/26]
Comment on this
The National Treatment Purchase Fund are the body designated, under Section 40 of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009, to negotiate with persons carrying on the business of a nursing home, for the purposes of reaching an agreement on the maximum prices to be charged for nursing home care, and are based on the NTPF’s cost criteria. These criteria include:
• costs reasonably incurred by the nursing home,
• local market prices,
• historic prices and
• overall budgetary capacity.
The NTPF carry out this role independently under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009. The NTPF has statutory independence, and there is no role for Ministers or the Department of Health in these negotiations which are conducted and agreed between individual nursing home providers and the NTPF.
Nevertheless, the Department of Health and I also have regular interaction with the NTPF to discuss ways to support the sector, where necessary and appropriate, to complement the normal process of negotiating rate increases when contracts are renewed.
A significant change that the NTPF have made to their negotiation process is to offer nursing home providers contracts of a shorter duration, which will aim to ensure that NTPF rate increases stay aligned with any cost pressure increases that occur over the course of the contracted period. This has allowed for more surety in the sector.