Ms Susan Cliffe:

The key point is the regulations we were inspecting against, which comes back to the purpose of this meeting and the requirement for regulatory reform. When we were going out, we were inspecting against regulations that we now see had significant shortcomings. It is not so much the frequency of the inspections but the quality of the tools of the legislative framework against which we could inspect. This is why we very much welcome this engagement now and are actively engaging with the Department to drive the process of regulatory reform in order that we have more effective tools available to us to drive the quality of care in nursing homes and to increase the impact of the inspections we carry out in these nursing homes.