merrion street

The Government welcomes the report from the National Economic and Social Council Quality and Standards in Human Services in Ireland: Residential Care for Older People.

It sees this study as a very useful insight into the effectiveness of the reforms that have taken place in residential care for older people. The Report shows the value of changes to date, notably the establishment of HIQA to inspect and regulate residential settings for older people. Stakeholders report that these new regulations and standards are much more robust than those which applied previously, and consider that they have increased the quality of, and confidence in, care in this sector.

The Report makes some useful suggestions about how further quality improvement can be promoted in residential care for older people. In particular, sharing best practice on how to implement good care processes, could lead to higher quality services right across the sector. Internationally, some of these best practice processes have been shown to help provide high quality care at lower cost, providing good value for money.

The Report indicates the value of programmes to support cultural change in how services are provided. It emphasises the importance of collecting standardised data to allow benchmarking of quality of care for older people in different settings. The HSE is currently piloting such a data set, with a view to rolling it out nationally.