The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published 13 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.

All 13 of today’s reports refer to centres operated by the Health Service Executive (HSE), nine of which are in the northwest of the country. 

One of the reports refers to a HSE centre to which HIQA had previously obtained a court order requiring the provider to address areas of significant concern. On this inspection, while there continued to be areas of non-compliance, inspectors found that there had been significant improvements since the previous inspection.

Inspections in two other HSE centres found a good level of compliance with the requirements of the regulations and standards. One of these centres was granted registration.   

In December 2016, in response to findings of high levels of non-compliance and poor standards of service for residents in a range of HSE centres in the northwest, the HSE National Director was required to submit a governance plan to the Chief Inspector of Social Services in HIQA. That plan set out how the HSE were going to ensure that the quality of service to residents in this area would be improved. HIQA has been undertaking a programme of inspections to verify whether the HSE actions have been effective in improving the quality of life for residents in those services.

Inspectors found that one of these HSE centres had made significant improvements since the previous inspection.

While improvements were found in some of the other HSE centres in the northwest, inspectors continued to find areas of non-compliance that were impacting on the quality of life of residents in most of the centres. Inspectors also identified risks to residents which the provider was not managing appropriately. The areas that required significant improvement included governance and management, appropriate care and support for residents, fire safety, staffing levels appropriate to the assessed support and care needs of residents and deficits in staff training to support staff to meet the needs of residents.