The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) regulate and monitor
the residential services for people with disabilities. All the organizations that
are running residential services, including respite services offered by the
Health service executive (HSE) or any other body being funded by HSE is required to adhere to certain mandatory
standards.
The Regulations
The National Standards for Residential Services for Children and Adults
with Disabilities are the benchmark standards that are needed to be fulfilled
by all the residential services. There is already a mandatory requirement for registering
a supported living service with HIQA prior to the commencement of the operations. The compliance
to standard related regulation is monitored and inspected by HIQA.
The Standards
The National Standards for Residential Services for Children and Adults
with Disabilities are grouped under 8 key themes
- Individualised
Supports & Care
- Leadership,
Governance & Management
The First four themes represent service aspect of the operations and
last four themes cover the organisational
aspect of the service providers operation.
The regulatory working
- A service
provider needs to show its capability to meet the standards and any legal
requirement to get a registration certificate to operate.
- The
registration certificate needs to be renewed in every 3 years.
- The service
provider will be inspected regularly to check whether all the services are of
high quality and meets the regulatory requirements.
- The
inspections may be planned or a surprise at any time of day or night.
- The
inspectors interact with the residents and the staff to understand the ground
reality. They also look through the food program and amenities to verify that
regulations and standards are being followed.
The Service providers need to be careful in complying with these
standards in order to run a successful operation.