Leitrim hospital made 'every effort to ensure their patients' dignity, privacy and autonomy was respected'

St Patricks Community Hospital in Summerhill, Carrick On Shannon, Leitrim, a designated centre that provides 24-hour care to 46 residents, primarily requiring nursing and/or palliative care, was visited by Health Information Quality Authority (HIQA) inspectors in April who found that the rehabilitation and community in-patient hospital was compliant or substantially compliant in all 11 of the national standards it was assessed.

Seven were compliant, four were substantially compliant, and there were no non-compliances found.

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Overall, inspectors found good levels of compliance with the standards assessed with capacity and capability inspectors observing that, while there were formalised corporate and clinical governance arrangements in place to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe and reliable care provided to patients in St Patrick’s Hospital, there were areas identified for potential improvement.

For example, some committee minutes required clearer differentiation between services, terms of reference were in need of updating in some cases, and there was a need to identify responsible persons for required actions.

The report said there were effective management arrangements in place to support and promote the delivery of “high quality, safe and reliable healthcare services relevant to the size and scope of the hospital. The hospital planned, organised and managed their workforce to achieve high quality, safe and reliable healthcare, however, the lack of cover for the clinical pharmacy service during staff leave was identified as a potential risk on the hospital risk register.”

The report continued that quality and safety staff and management in the hospital made “every effort to ensure their patients' dignity, privacy and autonomy was respected and promoted, however, this was challenging due to the lack of single rooms available in the event of end-of-life care situations. Management and staff fostered a culture of kindness, consideration, and respect.”

Patients stated that ’’the staff were very good’’ and ’’care couldn’t be better’’ and hospital maintained effective systems and processes to address complaints and concerns from patients, the report said.

It stated that the physical environment broadly supported the delivery of high-quality, safe, reliable care to protect people using the service, “however, the infrastructure posed challenges as identified on the hospital risk register due to the lack of single rooms for isolation purposes.”

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The report said: “The hospital systematically monitored and evaluated its healthcare services to ensure they were suitable for its size and scope. Inspectors found that the hospital had systems in place to identify and manage potential risk of harm associated with the four areas of harm. In addition, there were systems in place to identify, manage, respond to and report patient-safety incidents, in line with national legislation and standards, policy and guidelines.”

It concluded: Overall, inspectors found that St Patrick’s rehabilitation and community in-patient hospital was compliant or substantially compliant in all 11 of the national standards it was assessed against during this inspection.”