Two Waterford care service providers fail HIQA inspections following unannounced visits

Two Waterford services for people with disabilities have failed their most recent inspections carried out by the Health Information and Quality Authority. 

Parkside Residential Services Kilmeaden had their unannounced inspection on March 7, 2024 and failed to comply with two-thirds of the regulations. 

Under Quality and Safety regulations, such as Premises and Fire Precautions, the inspector found the service to be 'Not Compliant' as they "found a number of issues such as areas of outstanding paintwork, mould and dampness on a bathroom wall, very marked and scratched flooring throughout the centre, an area of dampness on one residents bedroom wall, chipped and marked doors and door frames, rusting and chipped pipe-work in bathrooms and a stained and dirty window blind". 

In addition to these failed regulations, the inspector noted that "current living arrangements were not suitable" to meet the residents' assessed needs as two residents were "not compatible living together."

The provider told the inspector that since December 2022, it had been "continuously endeavouring to address this incompatibility issue in the centre" and to-date was "unable to source a suitable property for one resident to live in."

The Inspector also took issue with residents' care plans as they were "not up-to-date and some residents' personal care plans and social goals had not been reviewed since 2022".

"The service used a 'circle of support' model to fully review an annual plan of care in conjunction with the residents, the multi-disciplinary team and their chosen attendees. This had not happened for two residents since May, 2022.

"This meant that these residents did not have up-to-date personal plans/social goals in place," wrote the Inspector. 

The service was also found to be 'Not Compliant' under Training and Staff Development, and Governance and Management regulations. 

Despite this, the service was however compliant with protection regulations.

The Inspector explained: "While potential safeguarding risks were high in the centre, staff working with the residents daily were managing them well and for this reason, there were low levels of safeguarding incidents in the centre."

"Safeguarding risks were managed daily by staff through high staffing levels, separate living spaces in the home, separate transport, opposite resident routines and restrictive practices," added the Inspector. 

Meanwhile, on April 4, 2024, an unannounced inspection took place at Nova Residential Services. 

This service too was found to be in violation of Residents' Rights as, according to the Inspector, "staff in the centre were not always meeting residents' social care needs and preferences".

"This was impacting the residents choice and control and their right to access their community when they wished to," added the Inspector. This also failed the service under Individual Assessment and Personal Plan regulations and additionally under Staffing regulations.  

The issues of not supporting social care needs were particularly a concern on weekends, however, support documentation was also observed to be poor at times: "A number of care plans were also noted as having no evidence of review since 2022, this included the residents sensory care plan and their intimate care plan." 

"Overall, it was found that while residents appeared happy in the centre in general, there were a number of areas in need of improvements to promote higher levels of compliance with the regulations reviewed," the Inspector concluded.