Residents ‘badly let down’ by complaints procedures at care home, Swann says

The Health Minister was commenting on a criticial independent report into how concerns of residents at Dunmurry Manor care home were handled.

Julie Ann McNally (centre) the granddaughter of Annie McCourt protests outside the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) in Belfast a week after a damning report into standards at the Dunmurry Manor home. The 89-year-old great grandmother from west Belfast, who suffered from dementia, was a resident at the home for six months in 2016. She died later that year. (PA Archive)

Residents of a Northern Ireland care home were badly let down by a failure to properly address complaints about the facility, the Health Minister has said.

Robin Swann was responding to the findings of an independent report on how complaints related to Dunmurry Manor Care Home were handled.

The probe was one of a series commissioned by Mr Swann’s department in response to a damning 2018 report by the commissioner for older people into care at Dunmurry Manor.

At the time Dunmurry Manor was run by English company Runwood Homes.

It is now under new management and has been renamed Oak Tree Manor.

Commissioner Eddie Lynch’s 2018 report, titled Home Truths, listed a litany of failings in the care provided in the home, prompting him to make 59 recommendations to seven relevant authorities related to care provision, inspections and management.

The report published on Wednesday into the complaints procedures criticised how the concerns of residents and their families were handled.

Among the findings, the report stated: “Runwood did not seek to engage with complainants to fully understand their complaints; nor did it engage the relevant HSCTs (health and social care trusts) to address complaints that were of a care management nature; and some families were shortchanged with conditional apologies, for example, ‘I am sorry if you were upset’.”

The report did not confine its criticism to Runwood Homes.

It said the inspection body the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA); the Health and Social Care Board: the health and social care trusts (HSCTs) involved with the home; and Patient and Client Council (PCC) all did not adequately address the complaints.

“They appeared not to understand that making a complaint is stressful, exhausting and demanding,” added the report.

The independent review team made eight recommendations aimed at improving complaints procedures across the healthcare sector.

“I am committed to improving the outcomes for individuals who wish to complain about health and social care services to ensure that service users, carers and their families’ voices are heard,” said the minister.

“It is very clear that residents of Dunmurry Manor and their families were badly let down when it came to how complaints were dealt with. This has been a recurring challenge in the health and social care system and processes must be improved.

“People need to know who to turn to when services are failing them and their loved ones and they need to be assured that their complaints will be taken seriously and acted upon.”