Brian Stanley demands answers after nursing-home neglect exposed

The issue I'm raising is in relation to nursing homes, the lack of enforcement of standards. We witnessed last week the shocking scenes in the resident's nursing home in Portlaoise and there were never one in Dublin and I'm sure you're aware that there are other cases as well. What we saw was absolutely shocking, the level of neglect, abuse of behaviour, residents told to soil on a pad, an incontinence pad, elderly vulnerable residents left lying in Urine for hours at night calling for help, getting no help, rough handling, shortage of sanitary goods, basic items like that, no assistance with eating and this is a big issue. There's 15 or 20 minutes allocated to them to get people fed, some of these people can't feed themselves, so the food isn't eaten and then it's taken away as if they're not hungry that day, whereas the person might be very hungry. A former camera in Portlaoise nursing home tells us that what the RT programme only touched the surface and in quoting her directly and she quoted at length what she saw during her time working in the residence over a number of years and outlined the appalling practices there. Families have told us that one case for example, some shocking examples, and this is before any of this came out on RT, elderly mother looking to have her incontinence pad changed and despite repeated requests that didn't happen, they eventually took her out of there. A resident, a man with Alzheimer's from another town in the county, a person, a former neighbour recognised him walking around the town, he didn't even know where he was and contacted one of the family members and had gone back to the nursing home, but he was wandering around, nobody had missed him. There was an agreed plan, there were corrective measures taken, they weren't implemented, protective disclosures, the protective disclosure was about a third nursing home, you know that, it wasn't about those two nursing homes at all. And that person making the protective disclosure had to go to RTE because nothing was done for two years. The shortage of staff wasn't addressed, the abuse and neglect they continued, despite families having brought it to the attention of management and being assured and that improvement plans were being put in place and to be addressed, but didn't happen. And most of all, the resident nursing home continued taking in admissions, despite being banned by Hicke. And where is the sanctions minister? None. Hicke has failed miserably and I have to say that, I had faith in Hicke up to about 10 days ago, I have no faith in them now, I have lost all confidence in them to monitor the care in these nursing homes and enforce the regulations and rules. Are we going to have a guardian investigation into some of the criminal activity that we saw? Has Hicke issued financial penalties? Have Hicke deregistered any of the nursing homes owned by some of these large companies? In this case, this one, as I understand, they own 27. I met representatives from the Irish Nursing Home Alliance today. I am looking at a situation to outline that 77 independent smaller nursing homes have been closed in the past five years. And most of them have been due to strict demands. Hicke to the letter of the law holding them to make sure all of them are closed. Ballard Lodge in Port Leash that was providing excellent care that I never heard a complaint against, that closed recently. That's one of the most recent casualties of the Hicke standards. They are being held to the standards, so they are. These smaller ones are. Abbey Leak's public nursing home was almost closed. A public nursing home, 13 years ago, and a public campaign, a large campaign which was involved in, and others, stopped it from happening because of Hicke demands, and thank God we kept it there. So why does it appear that there is more lackadaisical approach in relation to the larger multiples, like what we have seen last week on the television? Have they got more clout? I don't know. I want to thank Deputy Stanley for raising this very important issue. I know we have all been shocked and appalled at what we saw in the RT Investigates programme last week, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the House. I especially recognise how equitable it has been for the residents of Port Leash and Ben Nevin Madner and their families. I want to make it clear that poor care, neglect and any other form of abuse of individuals residing in the long-term residential care centres is wholly unacceptable. The high standards of care and dignity must always be upheld without exception. Every nursing home resident deserves the highest standard of care at all times. To achieve this, registered providers must adequately support their staff. Having an effective governance and management range in place ensures that staff are equipped to deliver person-centred care to residents. The distressing footage aired during the RT Investigate programme last week has highlighted serious issues of non-compliance within these facilities. The welfare residents and their families remain a paramount concern for me. An action is being taken to address these failures and strengthen oversight to ensure the protection and well-being of all individuals in their nursing homes. Firstly, I fully expect HICWA and the Office of the Chief Inspector to utilise all powers available to ensure rigorous oversight and accountability in nursing home care. HICWA's Chief Inspector has confirmed their continuous intensive engagement with two nursing homes concerned and have committed to providing me with an update on their progress by the end of this week. I can assure the Deputy Stanley that my Department and I are monitoring developments closely of both these nursing homes and the welfare residents remain my highest priority. Secondly, I have also formally requested an overview of the nursing home operators owned by AMS. The Chief Inspector has committed to furnishing an interim report to me by the end of this week and a full report by the end of next week, providing an overview of the regulatory history, including but not limited to regularity compliance, escalating enforcement actions and any additional conditions of registration. Thirdly, the directors of nursing homes from both the local HIC community support teams have been on site at the two nursing homes in question. Additionally, local safeguarding and protection teams are actively reviewing all safeguarding concerns raised in relation to these facilities. I and the Department of Health Officials met with representative bodies and stakeholders from the nursing home sector earlier today. The engagements were constructive with immediate focus on delivering the highest quality of care to residents of nursing homes in Ireland. In relation to the safeguarding policy, you make reference to that in your question. In relation to safeguarding in the sector more generally, the Government is fully committed to strengthening existing protections in the sector. We will shortly publish a national adult safeguarding policy for the health and social care sector shortly. The policy will commit to the development of adult safeguarding legislation for the sector and will build on the range of existing legislation, policies and procedures already in place in the sector for preventing reporting and responding to abuse. The Government has included a Health Adult Safeguarding Bill in its current legislation programme and has recognised that this would be important and important for preventing and preventing and preventing vulnerabilities from abuse. What happened in the two nursing homes in the RT Invest the Guest programme was appalling, was sheer neglect and abuse of older people. It is something I and the Department and the Government take very seriously and it is something that I want to ensure in terms of the process now never happens again. One of the things I would like an explanation for is why a whistleblower after two years of inaction and nothing happening by the Chief Inspector Hickway had to go to the media to highlight all of this. Surely that is the scandalous situation that that happened and if we are the judges of society, they say judges of society about how we treat the weakest. The weakest are the elderly and the very, very young, infant children. So you mentioned that the Chief Inspector is going to carry out a review. The Chief Inspector has failed in relation to three nursing homes and possibly many more. My understanding is that the Chief Inspector's position legally is supposed to be separated from the inspections carried out by Hickway operators. But yet the Hickway staff have to have their reports approved by the Chief Inspector. So Hickway does the report but yet it is filtered through the Chief Inspector despite the fact that the Chief Inspector is supposed to be that separation. Why does the Chief Inspector have to approve all, all of these reports? Literally, the problem this arises here, Minister, is that this rests on one person. One person, you know, one person's determination, one person's judgment will determine what happened here or doesn't happen. And Hickway can't issue the report without that. So when will inspections be carried out unannounced and very strict inspections? When will there be effective sanctions? Really effective sanctions? What about deregistration and financial penalties? Are there financial penalties? I don't know. You know, maybe you would rather tell me in law whether there is or not. And when will this important piece of legislation from the 2017 Bill on safeguarding the elderly, when will that be enacted? It is sitting there now eight years, and we are all to blame for that. But primarily government, it is a government bill, and I would like to see it moved here. You know, the officials have drafted as I understand it, but yet we have not seen it in the House here. And we do need to do this urgently. I want to thank again Deputy Secretary for raising this important issue on the adult safeguarding, in the commitment in the report for Government to bring forward adult safeguarding policy policy for health and social care sector. I expect that it will be brought to Cabinet before the summer recess. And following from that, we will be looking to get approval to proceed to the Government to include a health and adult safeguarding bill, which is in the current legislative programme. It is a matter of absolute priority. And I am on record as saying that I would like to have seen the inspections take place quicker in terms of the protective closure, in terms of the timeframe on that. But you will appreciate, Deputy Stanley, that I want to work with process immediately on the RT stating on the Tuesday morning, what the two nursing homes and naming them. I had a meeting with HICWA and I requested immediately two things. One, that they would do intensive engagement with the nursing homes. They had committed to doing that. And two, to provide a report in the MAS group with all the nursing homes, looking at, in terms of, by the overview of all their nursing homes, regulatory history, including but not limited to regulatory compliance, escalating enforcement and any additional conditions of registration. I expect to receive a report on the two nursing homes, an update on that by the end of this week. An interim report in terms of the MAS group by the end of this week as well. And then a more substantial report, the full report by the end of next week on the MAS group. And for me, it is all about the older person in the nursing home. I want them to have a safe environment. We all have elderly relatives in any family. And it is something that I feel very, very strongly and passionately about.