The quality and safety of residents' care at a Tralee nursing home was found to be comprised by insufficient monitoring and oversight of infection control practices, fire precautions and a poorly maintained premises.
The Health Information and Quality Authority carried out an unannounced inspection at Saint Louis Nursing Home in Ballymullen, Tralee on January 11th.
While it found the healthcare needs of residents were met to a high standard, the centre was non-compliant across six areas of the Health Act 2007; it was complaint in nine areas and substantially compliant in four areas.
HIQA found Saint Louis Nursing Home to be non-compliant in training and staff development, records, governance and management, notification of incidents, premises and fire precautions.
The report notes three incidents pertaining to an allegation of abuse were not notified to the chief inspector within the required time frames, while adequate precautions to ensure that residents were protected from the risk of fire weren’t taken.
A number of issues were identified with the governance and management of the centre, with the systems in place not ensuring the effective delivery of a safe, appropriate and consistently monitored service, the report noted.
Saint Louis was found to be compliant in nine areas, including staffing with the adequate number of staff available to cater to residents’ needs; complaints procedures, health care and food and nutrition.
The Tralee nursing home was substantially compliant in four areas - infection control, volunteers, protection and residents’ rights.
Saint Louis Nursing Home is owned and operated by Yvonne Maher and the inspector noted she had a strong presence in the centre, which provides care to 25 residents over the age of 65.
A compliance plan has been put in place to address issues noted in the report; these include ensuring staff get suitable training in fire prevention and emergency procedures, ensuring the quality and safety of care delivered to residents is monitored and that all mandatory training is up to date and a plan is in place for future training.
The full report can be seen here:
