INHO criticises nursing homes legislation

The Irish Nursing Homes Organisation (INHO) has condemned the Government’s failure to establish an independent inspectorate in the wake of the Leas Cross nursing home scandal.

“So much for the Taoiseach’s promise of an independent inspectorate,” said INHO chief executive Tadhg Daly.

“Not only are we still awaiting the passage of the new legislation, we are seriously alarmed by the extraordinary provision in the draft bill that private nursing homes would continue to be inspected by the Health Service Executive (HSE).”

Speaking last year at the Dáil debate in 2005, the Taoiseach said that the Government was committed to the introduction of a stronger regulatory system.

He pledged to introduce a Bill to establish an independent social services inspectorate on a statutory basis to deal with both private and public nursing homes, to be published later that year.

The recently published Health Bill 2006 draws a distinction between public and private nursing homes and allows for a continuation of the situation where the HSE conducts inspections on facilities it is purchasing from the private sector.

“We will be in a situation where two different agencies will be responsible for inspecting nursing homes – the HSE will continue to inspect private nursing homes and the Social Services Inspectorate will inspect public homes,” said Daly.

“While we welcome the introduction of inspections for public nursing homes, the potential for conflicting understandings of standards that this differentiation implies is absolutely unacceptable to the INHO, and the Irish people, who will not forgive the Government if they fudge this issue”.