HSE staff could face sanction over failings

THE HSE last night admitted that some staff could face sanction over failings in the Roscommon Child Care Case, but stressed changes had been implemented to avoid a repeat case taking place in future.

Speaking after the publication of the shocking findings of the Roscommon Child Care Case, local health manager HSE West Bernard Gloster said a separate process would now look into whether staff involved in the family’s care were guilty of negligence.

This, he said, included sanction up to and including dismissal, although he would not say how many people would be investigated or whether there were other cases they had been involved with that had given rise to concerns within the HSE.

The report, carried out by Barnardos’ Director of Advocacy Norah Gibbons outlines in stark detail the multiple failings within the old Western Health Board and makes a series of recommendations, including that the HSE carry out a national policy audit and review of neglect cases.

Mr Gloster confirmed that a current audit of neglect cases in HSE West would now be extended to HSE South and HSE Dublin/Mid Leinster.

“We need to look right across the caseload of neglect cases to see if there are other cases that we need to be concerned about,” Mr Gloster said.

He said other steps had been taken to ensure such awful events could not occur again, including the hiring of 200 new social workers, 40 of whom will be placed in HSE West and five of whom will be working in Roscommon.

When asked why investigations of staff involved in the case would only start now, he said it was a separate process and staff had already received additional training following the jail sentences handed down to the mother and father of the family.

He also stressed that there needed to be a distinction made between failings and a “willful act” of negligence.

He said staff dealing with the case had relied on a family support-type intervention, but when the evidence did not emerge to show sustained improvement, the system should have defaulted with the children being taken into care.

This reliance on family support was carried out with “a level of hope”, he said.

The HSE is also set to conclude a new legal tendering service, while the National Social Care Council is understood to be looking at setting minimum standards within social work.

Mr Gloster also said a new national standard policy on case conferences would be operational by the end of the year.

The report states that in some cases social workers took at face value what they were told by others, without checking the facts for themselves, but the HSE said that new training had been provided for managers to ensure more coherent responses locally.

As for the six children, four have been in HSE care for six years while two are living with relatives.

There were also calls last night from Barnardos for the Children First guidelines to be placed on a statutory footing and for a referendum to enshrine the rights of the child into the Constitution.

Full report: www.hse.ie