A North Kerry residential centre has given assurances to the health watchdog that it will take actions to become compliant with infection control regulations.
Listowel Residential Services received an unannounced inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority in May of this year.
The inspection was solely focused on the centre’s compliance with regulations around infection prevention and control.
The HIQA report arising from that inspection shows the centre was found to be non-compliant with these regulations.
The inspector on the day found that large areas of the house, including residents’ bedrooms, were presented in a clean and homelike manner overall.
As well as this, the residents appeared relaxed in their home, and they interacted positively with the inspector.
However, some areas were noted which needed improvement from the perspective of infection prevention and control.
These included that some expired PPE and first aid products were found during the inspection, while the monitoring systems needed improvement.
The inspector noted there was no formal out-of-hours, on-call arrangements in operation at certain times of the week.
The majority of staff had not completed training in the 2018 national standards for infection prevention and control, and four were overdue refresher training in hand hygiene.
Minor wear issues were also noted in one bathroom.
The inspector also wrote, however, that staff members displayed a good knowledge around matters related to infection prevention and control, including the response to a suspected case of COVID-19.
In response to the inspector, the centre gave assurances that issues identified will be resolved.
This includes measures such as staff completing HIQA national standards on IPC training, and expiry dates being checked on PPE, and repair works on some facilities which were worn.
