Nursing home reform ‘vital’

TWO groups that lobby for vulnerable people yesterday called for major reform of the nursing home inspection system.

The Leas Cross nursing home scandal “could be happening” in other areas in the absence of national standards, People with Disabilities in Ireland warned.

And Age Action Ireland said urgent publication of Professor Des O’Neill’s independent report on Leas Cross - the now-closed private nursing home - was “vital”. Prof O’Neill focused on more than 90 deaths of residents in the home between 2002 and 2005.

Leas Cross was closed down last year amid public outcry over the abuse of elderly residents there as highlighted by RTÉ’s Prime Time programme.

People with Disabilities in Ireland, at its board meeting in Tullamore, Co Offaly, urged Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney to publish standards of care for the country’s nursing homes.

The board expressed “grave concern” at the continuing failure of the Department of Health to insist on the implementation of national standards.

Chief executive Michael Ringrose said much of the health budget continued to be consumed by non-statutory organisations, many of which set their own standards.

“While many of the bodies providing services to people with disabilities are doing excellent work, it is also the case that a sizeable number do not want to become subject to the kind of scrutiny that such standards would impose,” he said.

Age Action Ireland said the Leas Cross report should be published “to allow for a full public debate on Ireland’s long-term care for older people”.

A report leaked to RTÉ last week found that nearly a third of nursing homes it reviewed in north Dublin since 2003 had no inspection in the previous six months. There ought to have been two a year.

Age Action said it believed there has to be a complete overhaul of care provision for older people.