The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published 20 reports on residential services for people with disabilities. HIQA inspects against the Health Act 2007 (Care and Support of Residents in Designated Centres for Persons (Children and Adults) with Disabilities) Regulations 2013 and the National Standards for Residential Services for Children and Adults with Disabilities, which apply to residential and respite services in Ireland.

Eleven centres were found to have a good level of compliance with the requirements of the regulations and standards, including centres operated by KARE, L’Arche Ireland, MCC Children’s Services Limited and Muiríosa Foundation.

Ten of today’s reports refer to centres operated by the Health Service Executive (HSE). A good level of compliance with the regulations was found in three of these centres. Seven reports were for centres operated by the HSE in the northwest of the country. Due to previous high levels of non-compliance in HSE centres in the northwest, HIQA undertook a programme in December 2016 and which ended in June 2017 to ensure the quality of service provided in the areas had improved.

Substantial improvements were found in HSE centres in the northwest. However, inspectors continued to identify areas of non-compliance that were impacting on the quality of life for residents in seven of the reports published today. Areas that required significant improvement included fire safety arrangements, written agreements between the residents and the centre and staff documentation. For example, some of the centres did not have Garda Síochána (police) vetting disclosures for staff available on the day of inspection.

Reports on three centres operated by Nua Healthcare Services have been published today. Two of these centres were found to be providing a service that was in compliance with the standards and regulations. In the other centre, however, inspectors found that identified safeguarding concerns had not been adequately addressed and, as a result, residents were not living in an environment in which they were safe.

Reports for three centres operated by RehabCare were also published. Inspectors found that the provider was generally meeting residents’ needs in line with the standards in two of these centres. However, inspectors found that the other centre was not sufficiently resourced to operate both a residential and respite service.