Deputy chief executive of the Western Trust Kieran Downey has previously told the Herald the takeover of the lease of Drumclay was being considered to ease the pressure on SWAH and to ensure residential dementia patients would not have to travel outside the county. 

Patients often have to remain in hospital, despite not being acutely ill, when there are no dementia available in the county. 

Local councillor Raymond Farrell said he is pleased to see this initiative is being taken forward, and believes the added beds could elevate pressures in SWAH. 

 “We have a growing elderly population and there are a significant number of elderly people who use hospital beds that could be moved to other accommodation if it was there. 

“This is good news. There needs to be development in terms of home care, community care and over the next 12 months we need to see investment in terms of recruitment to meet this growing need which is going to get aggressively more demanding for the Trust.”

Over the last 18 months the independent sector nursing home bed capacity in the county has decreased significantly. In August 2017, Ashbrooke Care Centre which was registered for 64 bedsclosed resulting in 40 residents being transferred to other care homes.Then in December the 52-bed Drumclay Care Home closed with 34 residents transferred to alternative care home places.

Deputy chief executive of the Western Trust, Kieran Downey, said, “As a starting point, dementia care and in particular the lack of dementia care beds in Fermanagh at present has been very prominent in all our discussions with the public,” he said. 

“We know we need to increase the provision of local nursing home beds for people living with dementia and have now commenced a recruitment plan with a view to opening beds in Drumclay later this spring.”