6 days ago
Government need to implement safeguarding legislation in nursing homes
The chairperson of Safeguarding Ireland, Patricia Rickard-Clarke, has repeated a call on the government to establish an interdepartmental interagency working group to implement the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission's report from April 2024, which set out the policy changes that needed to be made to implement safeguarding legislation.
Ms Rickard-Clarke was responding to an RTÉ exposé into two nursing homes where residents were manhandled and ignored for long periods of time.
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'I am very disturbed and very distressed and very, very angry about this,' she told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland. 'We're 20 years after Leas Cross. We have gone backwards, I think.'
While Leas Cross had been closed down advances had not been made in terms of what to do or what we should be doing, she said.
'There are questions to be answered by Hiqa. I would say, though, that in relation to Hiqa, one of the limitations it has is that it doesn't have the function of taking individual complaints or concerns. It looks at systemic issues, and it goes in on an irregular basis, and also, there was a delay in responding to a particular request (by a whistleblower).'
'That's just not acceptable. It's not acceptable even if there's one person being abused; that is a serious incident that should be followed up immediately.'
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The implementation of the recommendations about safeguarding would provide a legal framework, she said.
'At the moment, we're working to a HSE limited policy, which is run by the HSE by safeguarding and protection teams, but it is limited to healthcare issues.
'There are much wider issues in safeguarding, and again, there are offences that should be implemented straight away. The Law Reform Commission sets out a number of offences that straight away could be enacted under criminal law.
"This is the Department of Justice responsibility. So, an offence of intentional or reckless abuse and neglect or ill treatment, an offence for exposure to serious harm, an offence of endangerment. The criminal law it's all set out in the 2024 Bill.
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'We need what Safeguarding Ireland has recommended, which is the establishment of an independent adult safeguarding authority which will have functions and roles in relation to adult safeguarding to protect people from abuse. It would have the function of receiving reports of suspected abuse or actual abuse, and it would have the statutory function of responding to those abuses."
Meanwhile, the CEO of The Alliance, a trade association for the nursing home sector in Ireland, Shane Scanlan, has said he was 'utterly shocked and appalled' by the RTÉ exposé.
'As a nurse myself and the director of nursing for over 10 years, you just really feel for the residents and families that have been affected by this,' he told Newstalk Breakfast.
Mr Scanlon paid tribute to nurse Claire Doyle who was the 'whistleblower' who approached RTÉ and made protected disclosures.
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'The real question is, what if she never went to RTÉ with those protective disclosures, that she met and her students met, still went into Hiqa months before that? And it's a very brave thing she did, because it's not easy to pick up the phone or put something in writing and whistle blow.
"And in her own words, she said, 'from my point of view, within the system, I cannot blow the whistle any louder. No one is listening.' So, fair play to her in fairness. She's really called out what's happened here.'
The effectiveness of Hiqa had to be questioned, he added. Hiqa had been set up in the wake of the Leas Cross nursing home controversy to prevent such abuse from happening again.
'It's clear to us that they have failed to deliver on what they were set up to do. And there will be calls for further powers to be given to Hiqa, the Office of the Chief Inspector of Social Services, and that's not the answer here.
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'I'd be calling for an immediate, independent, root and branch review of how Hiqa carries out their inspections and their methodology. Because inspectors clearly need to spend more time observing care, speaking with staff, speaking to residents.
"There's a huge amount of agency staff that's currently being used by Hiqa. Last year alone, they spent €1.89 million on agency staff. And you'd be wondering, what are agency staff doing within that organisation?
"As I've said, a full review of the current leadership of Hiqa and its effectiveness needs to happen. And off the back of this scandal, you have the question, should there be some resignations here at the senior level?'
Mr Scanlan called for stronger protection measures for those who make protected disclosures. How that person can be protected and what will happen immediately afterwards.
'I think there's a taboo still in Ireland about making a protected disclosure for the fear of what will happen afterwards. You know, you might be in a job, you may be thinking down the line of a future career, will this get out in the public? We need to really look at that as a country.'
