Health watchdog seeks to deregister disability centres amid governance concerns

The health and safety watchdog has sought to deregister a number of disability centres run by Ability West due to “ongoing concerns about the impact of poor governance on the lives of residents”.

On Thursday, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published a number of inspection reports on disability centres. While the inspectors identified largely good levels of compliance with the regulations, it highlighted poor levels of compliance in 12 centres, run by six operators.

In six centres operated by Ability West, inspectors said poor governance and management arrangements were having an impact on residents’ day-to-day lives.

“This resulted in poor management of risk, and failure to meet residents’ health and personal rights and care plans, fire safety and measures to protect against infection,” Hiqa said.

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In Ability West’s St Teresa’s centre in Galway an unannounced inspection in September found there were 10 children and two young adults, aged 18 and 19, using the service.

“The provider had not recognised that two young adults utilising the service were no longer children resulting in significant gaps in the safeguarding measures in place,” the inspection report said.

In St Dominic’s centre, also in Galway, inspectors found a “failure to improve governance and management arrangements had a profound impact on the service residents”.

“The provider failed to ensure that the healthcare and safety arrangements for residents were being kept up to date and changing care needs were being responded to in a timely manner,” the report states.

“For example, inspectors read about a resident who was experiencing an increased number of falls including a requirement to attend for medical attention and the provider had not ensured a recent informed review by an appropriate health professional had occurred.”

The chief inspector has had “ongoing concerns” about centres run by Ability West and a six month regulatory escalation programme across all of the provider’s centres has concluded, and there “has not been sufficient improvement in governance and management in the organisation”.

The chief inspector cancelled the registration of one of the provider’s centres - Macotar Lodge - in September 2023 and the Health Service Executive took responsibility for the operation of the centre from that date.

The chief inspector has also issued notices of proposal to cancel the registration of three further centres whose reports were published on Thursday.

Under the Health Act 2007, the provider has a legal right to make representation to the chief inspector within 28 days before a final decision is made on whether to proceed with cancelling the registrations of those centres. Inspectors continue to monitor the quality of care and support being provided to residents in those centres.

In response to the inspection reports on six of its centres, Ability West outlined various ways in which they would improve compliance including increasing staff numbers, reviewing the roster system and furthering training for staff.

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