Written answers

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Department of Health and Children

Services for People with Disabilities

11:00 pm

Photo of Kathleen LynchKathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Question 221: To ask the Minister for Health and Children when the draft national standards for residential services for people with an intellectual disability, which were recently put forward to her by the Health Information and Quality Authority, will be put on a statutory footing; her views on whether these standards, when implemented, will have an impact on the lives of those people; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7336/09]

Photo of John MoloneyJohn Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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A Standards Advisory Group was established by HIQA to develop National Quality Standards on Residential Services for People with Disabilities. The Group comprised officials of HIQA, my Department, the HSE, service providers, organisations representing people with disabilities and service users, and met on a number of occasions during 2008, with a finalised set of draft Standards being agreed in early summer 2008. Following this, a public consultation process was initiated by HIQA and the proposed standards were presented to the Board of HIQA last month and were subsequently submitted to the Minister for Health and Children for approval.

These standards will provide a national framework for quality, safe services for people with disabilities in a residential setting and relate only to adult services at present. Given current economic constraints, the timeframe for statutory implementation of these standards is at this point unclear. However, my Department will be consulting with HIQA and the HSE on how practices might be improved within the sector in advance of statutory implementation.

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