Staff shortages at Tusla leading to delays in services for children

A report, published on Tuesday, found the service not compliant with four of five standards inspected on, and ‘substantially compliant’ with the fifth.

Staff shortages are leading to gaps and delays in services for children under Tusla child protection and welfare services in Louth and Meath, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has found.

There were nine vacancies and five staff on maternity leave with at least one child waiting 13 months for assessment at the time of an inspection in April.

A report, published on Tuesday, found the service not compliant with four of five standards inspected on, and ‘substantially compliant’ with the fifth.

This is linked to the shortages, the report indicates, including gaps in caseload management and case supervision including of children on waiting lists. Inspectors found “significant gaps” in record-keeping for the children’s care.

The health watchdog’s inspectors found despite contingency plans and staff retention initiatives, the service cannot meet demand.

Safety planning was poor, the report states and inspectors found the service is “under pressure”.

While the majority of parents who spoke to the inspectors experienced good partnership with the service, the report also notes parents who did not know why Tusla was involved with their child.

Parents from different cultural backgrounds felt that the service was not culturally responsive to their needs as additional resources, such as translation services, needed to aid good communication were not effectively used and they did not feel engaged in all aspects of the process,” the inspectors also found.

Anonymised comments from parents included one who said the service “changed my life” and another who said “hard to get through to the social worker” reflecting these shortages.

There were delays in responding to children and families and measures implemented to address delays were not effective, Hiqa found.

Inspectors said the region was not in compliance with Tusla’s standard business processes around timelines for completing preliminary enquiries or initial assessments.

Records showed 124 cases at preliminary inquiry stage with 21 awaiting allocation, this included one child waiting for 10 months, one for eight months and three for six months.

There were also 168 cases awaiting the start of initial assessment on the day of the inspection, including 111 waiting on allocation to a social worker. Delays from point of referral to this stage ranged from four to 13 months, inspectors found which they described as “persistent and significant delays”.

Managers interviewed reflected this frustration, describing the “struggle” to manage waiting lists and referring to unmanageable caseloads.

The service said interviews are underway with recruitment of graduates planned into the service this summer.

However, the report also notes recruitment had been expected earlier this year, as the service is one of five areas taking part in a Tusla project targeting back-logs called ‘High Need/Low Harm’.

The report highlights the impact of these shortages, saying the area manager could not be effectively assured that the service was safe, effective and timely despite the structures in place.

Hiqa also said: “Overall, this inspection found that the service had clear governance arrangements in place” and that immediate risks to children were responded to appropriately with allocations for high-priority cases.