'Nothing has changed since covid': Group not surprised about rise in nursing home complaints
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A rise in complaints from residents about nursing homes is not surprising given very little has changed since covid for those unhappy with their care, advocacy group Care Champions has warned.
A report from the Patient Advocacy Service in recent days noted a steep rise in the complaints.
“Nothing has changed since covid and that’s the problem,” said Majella Beattie of Care Champions.
“There is no safeguarding legislation, there is no care partner legislation. Nothing happens when there is poor performance found in a Hiqa report, for example.”
She said while the covid-19 nursing homes expert panel report in 2020 identified many areas to improve, much remains to be done. In one example if a resident wants to make complaints, she said there is often “nowhere to go with them” for solutions.
“Hiqa won’t deal with individual concerns, the Ombudsman won’t deal with a clinical concern, the HSE complaints service ‘your service your say’ will only deal with HSE services and more than 80% of nursing homes are in the private sector,” she said.
She acknowledged many private nursing homes are struggling with pay issues and staff shortages.
“When you are short-staffed that has a direct impact on residents. They are not going to get the care they would have if there was a full complement of staff,” she said.
“All of this goes back, in my opinion, to the fact that the State, rather than investing in high quality State-funded care, is propping up private businesses. And there are no safeguards for residents when things go wrong.”
Care Champions supports residents and their families in need of help in cases where a nursing home does not react appropriately to problems. “We still have residents who are facing eviction when they raise concerns,” she warned.
“We will have that threat because there is a lack of regulation and oversight. We are facing the very same issues as what we faced back in 2020 and 2021.”
In some regions she said things are getting worse, especially in rural areas where nursing homes can find it difficult to arrange services.
“There’s pressures in some cases on the residents and their families to pay more to try and fill that gap,” she said.
She added: “The system is really broken but there is no desire for anyone to sit down and really examine the whole system.”
Ms Beattie said last year's outrage following revelations about the rape of an elderly woman in a nursing home, known only as Emily, did not bring meaningful change.
“We are years talking about adult safeguarding legislation. But that wasn’t prioritised despite Emily’s case and other very serious safeguarding issues,” she said.
“It really highlights the lack of political will to ensure these things are in place. That Safeguarding Bill is already there, about 95% of the work is done on it but no-one has bothered to progress it.”
The Patient Advocacy Service said last year it received 197 requests for advocacy help specifically about nursing homes. This was an increase of 150% they said from the year before.
Among the complaints were residents given cold food by rude staff or charged fees higher than agreed.