An inspection of a south-east Clare centre for disabilities has found that staff failed to prepare food in a manner recommended by a risk assessment – even after a serious choking incident.
The Health and Information Quality Authority has stated it’s not “fully assured” that the staff of the centre are fully-informed on how to “manage a specific and serious risk to resident health and well-being”.
Newmarket Residential, which is managed by the Brothers of Charity, was the subject of an unannounced HIQA inspection on August 12th and 13th of this year.
The report, which has just been published, states that while residents were “generally happy”, it deems the findings “not satisfactory”.
The centre has been found not to be compliant in six of the areas in which it was assessed and just substantially compliant in a further five.
Staffing was deemed to be an issue, with the inspector noting it wasn’t confident the arrangements in place “ensured and assured continuity of care and support for residents” as almost 50% of staff worked on a less than full-time basis.
Resident safety was said to be further impacted by a failure to adhere to risk management procedures, and the report stated that in one instance, “food had not been prepared and provided to a resident in bite-sized pieces as stipulated in a risk assessment”, followed a previous “serious choking incident”.
The Brothers of Charity have submitted a full compliance plan outling how all areas of non-compliance will be addressed.
You can read the full report here
