Ms Fiona Larthwell:

The HIQA national standards are currently being developed by HIQA and we expect them to be going out for public consultation later in the year. These will likely echo a lot of what is in the national standards for designated centres. I do not think there is anything particular in there, but it is certainly something we would expect. If a provider is delivering a service to a person, it has to be able to communicate with that person. As we have spoken about, in many cases this is intimate personal care where people might feel uncomfortable or might have particular needs they need to have understood. In the case you describe, I would expect providers to have appropriate arrangements in place to be able to communicate with the person.