Night staff at nursing home unaware of infection outbreak

Fifty reports of unannounced inspections in nursing homes across the country were published by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) on Monday. File picture

Night staff were not aware of an infection outbreak during the third day of an unannounced inspection at a Tipperary nursing home.

Nenagh Manor Nursing Home was found not compliant when it came to staffing levels and management of infection control.

Fifty reports of unannounced inspections in nursing homes across the country were published by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) on Monday. 

Seventeen centres were found to be non-compliant with three regulations or fewer, while four were found non-compliant with four or more regulations.

Inspectors at Nenagh Manor found staffing levels were inadequate, with 20 care hours unfilled on the first day due to unplanned leave and a 12-hour gap in the roster on the second day.

There was also an inadequate number of staff available to support residents with their hygiene needs.

Inspectors said this was evident when residents were observed waiting for care while staff were occupied.

“Furthermore, inspectors observed two residents waiting over 30 minutes to be assisted to bed,” states the report.

Inspectors found there were not enough staff to effectively clean all areas of the centre.

“For example, there was one housekeeper working from 8am to 4pm daily to clean the whole centre. This was a reduction in hours from the levels committed to in the statement of purpose. The hours were not increased during the recent infection outbreaks,” states the report.

All areas of the centre were not deep-cleaned following a previous outbreak of norovirus, and cleaning records showed “cleaning was not enhanced sufficiently during the outbreak".

The report states: “There were gaps in the cleaning records. This increased the risk of infection transmission. On the third day of the inspection, the centre was in another outbreak of infection.

“The provider had not increased housekeeping hours sufficiently to support routine daily cleaning or enhanced cleaning."

There was no signage to alert visitors that there was an outbreak of an infection, and the night staff were not aware of the outbreak either.

In the Good Counsel Nursing Home in Limerick, Hiqa found one staff nurse was rostered to provide care to 28 residents at night.

The nurse was supported by a healthcare assistant. They were observed assisting some residents who wished to retire to bed, supporting other residents with their individual care needs, and administering the night-time medication round.

“The inspector observed that the staffing arrangement did not allow for the consistent supervision of the communal areas, as the two staff on duty were required to support residents in other areas of the centre.

“Two residents with enhanced supervisory needs were observed unsupervised in the communal smoking room,” states the report.

The inspector also noted one resident was required to wait for 10 minutes for help with their personal needs.