Supporting Nursing Home Accreditation

Health care services in the Republic of Ireland suffer from a lack of quality and safety standards. In the nursing home sector, largely unregulated practices often have left vulnerable older people open to neglect and abuse.

To address the poor quality and safety standards in the health care system, the government set up an agency, the Irish Health Services Accreditation Board (IHSAB), which developed the Acute Care Accreditation Scheme (ACAS) in 2001. In 2004, IHSAB adapted these standards for Specialist Palliative Care Services called the Palliative Care Accreditation Scheme (PCAS).

The PCAS has been open on a voluntary basis to applications since July 2005. Milford Care Centre was the first facility in the country to achieve full accreditation as a Nursing Development Unit and therefore is well-positioned to respond to this recent initiative from the IHSAB. By going through the process to gain accreditation for its Palliative Care Services, Milford not only hopes to raise its own standards regionally, but also to act as a model to encourage other palliative care providers nationally to apply for accreditation.

Purpose and Impact of the Grant

The aim of this two-year grant is to support Milford’s own accreditation so that the standards achieved by Milford can serve as a national model and be disseminated nationally through the development of a quality and safety education programme.

Apart from raising the quality and safety standards of service providers in the sector, the accreditation will also act as an on-going monitoring instrument driving cyclical improvement in the sector as organisations are required to re-apply for accreditation every three years.