Care facility lacks social activities: One resident didn't get to go home for Christmas

Medical appointments were listed as ‘social activities’ by staff at a HSE-run designated centre for disabilities in Cork, and insufficient staffing was said to lead to residents watching TV for large portions of time.

An unannounced inspection at the Oakvale Centre for adults focused on suitable activities for residents, after previous inspections had found issues in this particular area, was conducted on February 6.

The centre was not marked fully compliant in any area, but was marked substantially compliant in six and not compliant in a further six, the majority of which had to do with a lack of activities for residents.

From what inspectors observed, some improvements had been made since the previous inspection, but some residents continued to be impacted on an ongoing basis by a lack of appropriate activation, including regular community access.

A compliance plan in January 2023 outlined that four new posts would be created to work in conjunction with the two activation staff already in place.

Initially the provider had committed in their compliance plan to have these staff in place by September 2023, but nearly a year later, following several setbacks, these staff are still not in place.

The report explained that while there was sufficient staff to meet the day-to-day and basic care needs of residents, the staffing arrangements in place did not promote social and community integration or access for all residents to activities and programmes of their choice.

It was observed that the vast majority of activities conducted within the centre were activities such as watching television, listening to the radio, or chatting with staff, and some residents spent a lot of their day sitting in the communal areas or walking around their units.

Though some trips outside the centre for coffee or to the cinema were recorded, there were times when medical appointments including hospital trips were listed as being a social activity.

An inspector met with one resident whose file advised that Catholic religious practices such as Mass, hymns, and prayers were important to them.

Their family had advocated for them to visit home for Christmas, but arrangements between the family and the provider suggested “that the resident could pay a large sum of money for a taxi to facilitate this request.”

Eventually, arrangements were put in place for the resident to travel home “at a mutually convenient time in the days after Christmas”, meaning the resident did not have an opportunity to visit their family home or attend Mass in their local community on Christmas Day.

There were also issues identified around person-centred planning, which was used to find out what is important to residents so that meaningful goals to achieve can be identified.

However, in the folders reviewed, the majority of the person-centred planning documents had not been completed.

The centre was also marked not compliant in the area of resident’s rights for similar reasons, with the inspector noting that, as identified in a previous inspection, “all residents did not have access to meaningful occupation and to regular community access, and this impacted on residents’ capacity to exercise personal independence and choice in their daily lives”.

Wheelchair users were particularly impacted by this, with an insufficient amount of staff to drive residents in the centre’s allocated wheelchair vehicles, as well as the lack of suitable taxis locally, meaning “many residents who used wheelchairs were not afforded opportunities to leave the centre as often as their ambulatory counterparts”.

Though the provider added that since the inspection “there have been significant steps taken since the date of inspection in improving the access, options, availability, and opportunities for social activities, and achieving supported individual’s desired/stated goals as per each persons will and preference”.

Additional staff were still not in place at the time the report was published.