Ms Mary Dunnion:

I will speak just to nursing homes as we deal with disability services as well. The number of residents living in a nursing home can range from 30 to 180. The size of a nursing home dictates the resources and number of inspectors assigned. For the most part, the majority of inspections before Covid-19 involved one inspector. As we said, there are 570 nursing homes and the Deputy might imagine, with the number of inspectors we have, it is quite a heavy load.

Our inspections can take up to six or eight hours and we have had to reduce the limit to six hours in light of public health guidelines. Our inspections may be announced, unannounced or short-term announced. Announced inspections are generally where we need to ensure we have certain personnel on-site in the nursing home. For example, that would happen if a registration is to be renewed. Our unannounced inspections occur generally where we have a concern about the quality and safety of services, and that can happen midweek, in the evening, early in the morning, at night or at the weekends. There is a plethora of examples of all those.

However, inspection is only one part of regulation. The Deputy knows that an inspector must inform all decisions from the regulatory history of the provider of the mandatory notifications set down in regulations that a provider must send. As my colleagues have said, there is also unsolicited information from people with concerns, whether they are family, staff or residents.