Disability service ‘must improve’

THE introduction of quality standards for disability services was long overdue, a lobby group for people with disabilities said yesterday.

The standards which will apply to day, residential-respite training and home support services funded by the Department of Health will be phased in from October. A registry of approved services will be set up from 2004.

The standards will apply to services for children and adults with autism, intellectual, physical and/or sensory disability funded by the department and provided by both statutory and non-statutory agencies.

General secretary of the National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland (NAMHI) Deirdre Carroll said they welcomed the introduction of quality standards and wanted to see them rigorously enforced and subjected to independent external monitoring.

Ms Carroll said NAMHI, the national umbrella organisation for over 160 associations working in the field of intellectual disability, was particularly concerned about people with intellectual disabilities in residential care.

“There are standards for nursing homes and children’s homes but none for people with disabilities in residential care,” she said.

NAMHI’s Frieda Finlay said, as a parent, she was anxious that access to high quality care was a basic human right.

“The question of resources should not come into it,” she insisted.

Ms Carroll said it had yet to be agreed who would be charged with the responsibility of properly implementing the standards. New legislation might be needed to enforce the standards.

“There must be some mechanism to ensure there are sanctions there for organisations who fail to meet the standards,” she insisted.

She expected some would argue they need additional resources to bring their services up to standard and that was another issue that would have to be tackled.