Inspection of home carers urgent: law reform body

Professional carers and home helps looking after elderly people and other vulnerable individuals at home must be regulated and subject to inspections, the Government’s independent legal advisers have warned.

The Law Reform Commission is today publishing draft laws it says would bring such staff, whether HSE, voluntary or privately employed, under the watch of HIQA, the state agency that already monitors standards in private and public nursing homes and other residential institutions.

The 130-page commission report points out that the policy of successive governments in recent times has been to encourage more older people to remain living at home for longer, rather than entering full-time residential care.