The Health Information and Quality Authority has published its first annual overview report on the regulation of designated centres for older people.

The report summarises the findings of the 697 individual inspection reports published by HIQA during 2013, analyses the regulatory activity that HIQA undertook as a result of these findings and provides an overview on the nursing home sector in Ireland.

Phelim Quinn, HIQA’s Director of Regulation and Chief Inspector of Social Services, said: “Four and a half years into the regulation of nursing homes in Ireland, the Authority has noted that there have been significant improvements in the safety and quality of care provided to people living in residential care. However, it is clear from this report that there are areas where further improvement is required and we will focus on these areas as part of our continued regulatory activities during 2014.”

In 2013 the Authority’s inspectors identified 8,697 actions required for compliance with the regulations and National Standards across 565 residential centres. 21% of these actions related specifically to risk management and health and safety.

The risk management actions that services were required to take included putting in place comprehensive risk management policies and dealing with basic elements such as ensuring a centre’s ability to identify, record, investigate and learn from serious incidents or untoward events.

Registered providers or persons in charge of designated centres for older people are legally required to notify HIQA without delay of certain adverse or potentially harmful events that have taken place within their centres.

“The overview report highlights that HIQA received 5,362 of these notifications in 2013. 79% of them related to serious incidents to residents. 373 notifications were about alleged, suspected or confirmed abuse of any resident and 293 were related to an outbreak of an infectious disease.”

“The Authority used this information and the outcomes of our inspection work to inform and plan for our subsequent regulatory activity. Findings on inspections, such as those presented in this report, also inform the guidance we produce to assist providers to improve the quality of services,” Phelim Quinn said. 

“HIQA seeks to ensure that the health, wellbeing and quality of life of people living in residential care is protected and improved. This drive for improvement underpins the concept of thematic inspections which we introduced in 2013. This thematic approach focuses attention on areas that we believe will help to drive quality and safety.”

“We have observed, from both inspection findings and subsequent feedback from service providers, that this thematic approach has had a positive impact. This is demonstrated in the overview report’s analysis of the findings of a pilot programme at 52 designated centres which focussed attention on end-of-life care and food and nutrition.”

“The findings provide assurance that service quality in respect of end-of-life care and food and nutrition was continually improving throughout 2013.”

Good practice was observed in the majority of the centres and our inspectors noted improvements in most centres following inspection.The Authority will be applying the same methods to all remaining designated centres in 2014, with a view to identifying further inspection themes for 2015, based on our knowledge of the services.

“In HIQA we are committed to regulating effectively and efficiently, and to ensuring that the outcomes of our work are communicated to all relevant stakeholders so that the people who live in designated residential centres for older people will continue to receive safer better care,” Phelim Quinn concluded.

ENDS

Further Information: 

Marty Whelan, Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement
01 8147480 / 086 2447623 mwhelan@hiqa.ie

Notes to the Editor: 

• HIQA carried out 814 inspections of 565 residential centres for older people in 2013.
• 78% of the inspections in 2013 were unannounced; 22% were announced inspections.
• Of the 8,697 actions required for compliance with the regulations and National Standards, the greatest number of these, 2,943, was under the theme of effective care and support, followed closely by 2,726 actions required under safe care and support; 1,119 under governance, leadership and management; 959 under person-centred care and support and 950 under the theme of workforce.
• 5,362 legal notifications were received by HIQA in 2013. These cover deaths of residents under 70 years (184 notifications); outbreak of infectious diseases (293); any serious injury to a resident (4,246); unexplained absence (171); alleged, suspected or confirmed abuse of a resident (373) and allegations of misconduct by the centre or anyone working there (95).
• HIQA also received unsolicited information 355 times relating to 213 centres during 2013, most of which came from concerned relatives of residents.