A PRIVATE nursing home in Co Offaly had no structured activity programmes in place for its residents on several occasions when visited by inspectors, according to Health Service Executive reports.
Reports of inspections on Upton House nursing home, released to The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, show the issue was identified by inspectors when they visited the home on four occasions between March 2008 and February 2009. The inspectors recommended appropriate recreational and social stimulation be provided immediately at the home, noting that the only available activities were TV and newspapers.
Furthermore, inspectors who visited the home in February this year found problems with the general state of repair of the premises and its equipment and furniture.
They found rusted commodes and rusted cotsides in a number of rooms which were not correctly secured to bedframes, torn upholstery, worn and faulty chairs, a sling being used with a hoist for patients was very worn and potentially dangerous to use – and a number of areas of the home were in need of improved cleaning, repair and painting.
However, the home last night branded the inspection reports “false and inaccurate”. It said it saw the reports “as part of an ongoing campaign of harassment” and it would be issuing legal proceedings against the HSE.
It said the home always provided individual care, occupational therapy and social activity to individual patients and “does not force patients to engage as a group in the one size fits all model beloved of the HSE”.
The home was in the news earlier this summer after the HSE sought to attach 11 conditions to its re-registration. The person in charge of the home, Maureen Flanagan, lodged an appeal against the HSE’s decision and when the matter came before Tullamore District Court the legal representative for Upton House, her son James Flanagan, sought to have the case heard in camera.
However, Judge Conal Gibbons said it would be “inappropriate, incorrect and unlawful” for the proceedings to be held in secret. The appeal was ultimately withdrawn by Mr Flanagan. Mr Flanagan said yesterday the 11 conditions, details of which were also released under FOI, were never attached to the home.
“The 1990 Act provides that where the relevant official decides to attach conditions and the nursing home appeals, then the nursing home is to be regarded as registered without the attachment of conditions,” he said.
He said Ms Flanagan filed an appeal, but claimed that prior to the date for the hearing, a solicitor for the HSE wrote to the nursing home and stated the HSE was not going to offer any evidence in court to support the attachment of conditions.
“The day before the case was due to start, the Minister for Health repealed the Act and with it both the power to attach conditions and to appeal against same. On the day of the hearing the nursing home formally withdrew its appeal for legal reasons amongst which were that no conditions were attached pending the appeal and as a result of the repeal of the Act none now could be attached,” he added.
The changes in the Act were to hand over responsibility for nursing home inspection to the Health Information and Quality Authority. Asked yesterday if it had attached conditions to the home’s registration or not when it handed over files to Hiqa, the HSE said this was a complex legal question and it would have to get legal advice “in order to respond”.