The State’s health care services watchdog is urging the Government to “prioritise” the development of a regulatory system for home care.

HIQA is calling for regulation of the homecare sector.

The State’s health services watchdog had to stop some private nursing homes from charging residents additional fees to keep their facilities up to standard, a Dáil committee was told.

A significant number of people have observed physical or emotional abuse in nursing homes.

Health watchdog Hiqa has warned of the potential of “new hidden populations” who could be vulnerable to abuse, including the homeless, migrants and those in direct provision.

Measures are needed to ensure that people are cared for at home safely, the head of the State’s health services watchdog said yesterday.

A HSE care home, where three residents went missing unnoticed by staff and where care was described as “institutionalised and medically focused”, will not now meet a commitment to transfer patients to the community this year due to lack of funds.

OVER the weekend, HSE chief Tony O’Brien warned that there is no clear national vision for our health service and that the HSE has been starved of the funding needed to deliver reform.

The Health Information and Quality Authority is to carry out unannounced inspections on public hospitals to ensure that patients are being properly fed.

The State health watchdog has refused to say every maternity hospital in the country is safe.

The HSE has been accused of ignoring “more than a decade” of serious patient safety concerns flagged by staff, patients, and official reports, culminating in the deaths of eight newborn babies in “extremely traumatising” circumstances.

At times like this, when a media storm threatens to engulf a story, it is vital to seek out expert opinion to get a sober, reasoned analysis of the true extent of the problem.

An independent patient advocacy group must be set up within a year to ensure that report recommendations are implemented because the HSE can no longer be trusted to introduce the reforms.

The head of the cross-party Oireachtas health committee has urged the HSE to immediately publish its detailed review of ambulance service gaps across the country, after concerns the investigation has been shelved.

Just like the infamous H-Blocks in the North or the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba, ‘Bungalow 3’ is well on the way to gaining notoriety as a place of horrific abuse and mistreatment of its inmates. But who is to blame for such behaviour, apart from the perpetrators themselves?

National ambulance service managers say they do not have the skills to do their jobs.

A total of 14,000 seriously ill people who called 999 were left waiting in “queues” for unspecified lengths of time in Dublin last year because of chronic gaps in the capital’s ambulance services. 

Anyone who calls 999 seeking emergency ambulance care may no longer be automatically taken to hospital if they are genuinely ill as the under-resourced service cannot cope with demand. 

Up to half of all emergency 999 calls in Dublin are delayed because there is no nearby ambulance, a report has found.

The Health Information and Quality Authority’s director of regulation, Phelim Quinn, has been appointed the Authority’s acting chief executive from today.

Appalling conditions at the emergency department of a major hospital are threatening patient safety, increasing risk of infection and compromising cleanliness, a damning watchdog report has found.

A new report has highlighted a number of patient safety risks in the Limerick Hospitals group which it states must be addressed as a priority.

The State’s health watchdog has admitted feeling "slightly hamstrung" in dealing with cases where an elderly nursing home resident is in physical danger.

There were 373 alerts over alleged or confirmed abuse of residents in long term care homes for the elderly to the inspections watchdog, last year, a report reveals.

Nursing home inspectors received 373 reports of alleged, suspected or confirmed abuse of older people last year.

More than a quarter of public acute hospitals inspected by HIQA have been given formal notifications of “serious risks”.

A new inspection regime for residential services for people with disabilities will conduct a “softly-softly approach” for the first two years of its operation, it has emerged.

Hospital staff missed 13 separate chances to save Savita Halappanavar’s life — including six in a single four-hour period.

Medics treating Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar, who died after being refused a termination as she miscarried, failed to give her the most basic care, a damning review of her case has found.

A child in foster care did not receive a single visit from a social worker in nine years and others were fostered to homes where undisclosed allegations had been upheld against adults, according to a review of foster and children’s residential services.

Vulnerable children are being looked after by foster carers who have allegations hanging over them, it has been revealed.

The Coolnasillagh Road. Up until this year, this two-mile-long mountain pass was used only by stray sheep and the people who lived along its steep slopes.

Vulnerable people will be protected from neglect and abuse under new standards launched by the health watchdog, it was claimed today.

The country’s children and family services will for the first time undergo independent inspection and monitoring by Hiqa after the watchdog yesterday unveiled details of its new inspection regime.

A new child protection and welfare inspection system has been put in place by the Health Inspection and Quality Authority.

Dust and dirt on surfaces, soiled bedpans, worn and damaged furniture, black residue in shower areas and blood stains in various locations were among the findings in a series of unannounced hospital inspections.