Children with disabilities left confined to bedrooms for weeks due to broken lift, Hiqa finds

Children with a disability were left confined to their upstairs bedrooms for over three weeks because the lift in their home was broken, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has found.

An unannounced inspection of the Woodbrook Lodge home for children with a disability in Co Monaghan, conducted on 25th January, found “two of the residents ... confined to the first floor of their home for twenty-five days without any alternative being considered”.

Its report, published on Monday, says: “The residents had been living in their bedrooms, engaging in limited activities on the landing area of the first floor, having their meals in the upstairs office area, did not attend school and one resident missed an appointment as there was no way to get them down the stairs except in the case of an emergency.”

Woodbrook Lodge, run by MMC Children’s Services Limited, has capacity for four children aged between 13 and 17. Three children, all wheelchair users, lived there at the time of the inspection. The lift had been out of order since December 31st, 2022 – 25 days, and previously between July 27th and August 29th, 2022 – 34 days.

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“This meant that in the past seven months two residents were confined to the first floor of their home for a total of 59 days,” says the report. “The provider had not responded appropriately to either incident and had not put in place alternative arrangements.

“The provider had also failed to notify Hiqa regarding the issues with the lift or the impact it had on residents on both occasions” – as required under its registration regulations. While staff had apparently raised concerns about the situation, “there were delays in this information reaching senior management”.

Of the 12 regulation headings inspected, Woodbrook Lodge was found to be “not compliant” under eight, including staffing, risk management, residents’ rights and fire precautions.

The service was “compliant” under healthcare, and “substantially compliant” under positive behavioural support, infection control and statement of purpose.

However, three staff had not had appropriate training in fire safety and evacuation specific to the needs of the children, despite having worked there three months. In addition: “the provider had not risk assessed the fact that, if the residents had to evacuate the building in an emergency scenario, the residents’ chairs specific to their needs could not be brought with them.

“The provider had failed to identify any alternative arrangements despite this occurring on two separate occasions.

“Overall, this inspection found that the provider had failed to meet the needs of the residents. The governance and management arrangements were ineffective,” says the report.

“The residents’ rights had been and continue to be significantly impacted by the fact that two of them were confined to the first floor of their home. The residents had been spending time in their rooms and engaging in activities with staff on the landing of their home. The residents had been confined to this area for over three weeks at the time of the inspection.

“Furthermore, before the inspection, there was no clear deadline for when the residents would be supported to access the ground floor of their home. Neither resident had been able to attend school, and one resident had missed a necessary appointment. The provider had failed to respect the rights of the residents,” according to the report.

In its compliance plan, included as an appendix to the report, MMC Children’s Services says two of the children’s bedrooms have been relocated to the ground floor and staff have received fire safety and evacuation training.