The Chief Executive of Nursing Homes Ireland has said there are a "significant" number of beds across the private nursing home sector available for use, amid large numbers of well patients remaining in hospital due to a lack of discharge options.
NHI carried out a survey of members in recent days across 440 homes in the private and voluntary sector, of which 210 responded.
It found that 70% of homes that responded said they had beds ready and available to be utilised, amounting to a total of 760 beds in 147 homes.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Tadhg Daly said NHI has provided the information from the survey to the Health Service Executive, and that the HSE will now contact homes to expedite transfer of those from hospital into the community.
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"Clearly there are a significant number of beds across the private and voluntary nursing home sector that are available for use as we speak," he said.
The survey found that 63 homes said they did not have beds available to use, either due to beds being in use or as a result of staffing issues.
Mr Daly said there are "always" beds available in the private and voluntary nursing home sector for a variety of reasons, adding that local hospitals should have access to those beds throughout the year on a contract basis.
"Discharges happen every day to nursing homes whether under fair deal or transitional care, but there needs to be a renewed focus now on contracting beds in nursing homes where there are pressure points," he said, adding that it is a "complex" situation.
"We're talking about real people here, and we've got to ensure that the nursing home has the ability to care for that individual, and that the resources - whether financial or community intervention teams - are there to support the resident when they do transfer out from an acute hospital to a nursing home," he said.
Mr Daly said the complexity of care in nursing homes is "very high", adding that the majority of those in homes are over 85, with the average stay being less than two years.
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A consultant geriatrician based at Tallaght University Hospital in Dublin has said the process of arranging home care packages for patients to enable them to leave hospital after acute care is "too cumbersome" and is being left largely in the responsibility of the hospitals, resulting in beds being taken up in hospitals as a result of a lack of step-down options.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Dr Ronan Collins said every hospital in the country will have at least two patients waiting "several months" for step-down care.
"Twenty years ago when I worked in the UK, this was not the responsibility of the acute hospitals, it was the responsibility of community health services," he said, adding that "responsibility for this issue needs to be moved in a more transparent visible way where people can take accountability of the problem".
"There is nobody in my opinion who seems to have responsibility for this," he added.
"Almost every ward I can guarantee you, in every hospital in this country, has at least two or three people waiting several months, whose acute care episode has finished, and for a variety of reasons nursing homes who feel they can't meet the care needs of the patient, or families may want a particular nursing home, or people need homecare packages and we can’t get the carers in the community.
"If you have a person in an acute hospital bed for several months, you can add up how many patients could’ve been put through that bed if it was available."
