Ms Fiona McDonnell:

I do. On red flags, it is not easy to remove a service from our register. When we carry out an inspection and find non-compliance with various regulations, we give the provider the opportunity to respond through a corrective and preventative action plan that the provider submits to us. If we are not satisfied and the provider does not close out all the non-compliances identified in the inspection, we add conditions to the registration. That happens at a regional registration panel. The majority of providers are open and co-operate with us regarding the findings of inspections. Most services are registered. When we add conditions to registration, the service is given 21 days to respond and within that time the majority undertake to rectify the non-compliance if that has not already been done. The services escalated to our national registration panel from the regional registration panel involve consistent verifiable breaches and a history of non-compliance.

On enforcement, we have proceeded to a proposal to remove from the register in respect of several services. In many such cases, the service pulls back and supports are brought in to rectify the breaches found on inspection. In such instances, we may add conditions rather than remove the service from the register. The services we removed from the register were guilty of blatant and consistent disregard for the regulations.