Information for residents and relatives

Standards

Easy to read guide to the standards.

About the standards

The standards are based on a positive vision for developing services to support people with disabilities in Ireland. They represent the ideas of enablement and possibility and focus on what people with disabilities can do when they receive the right support.

The quality standards clearly outline what is expected of a provider of services and what a resident, their family, a carer, or the public can expect to receive in residential care settings for people with disabilities.

The purpose of the standards is to promote best practice in residential centres for people with disabilities and improve the quality of life of residents in these settings.

The standards have been approved by the Health Information and Quality Authority. They will be approved by the Minister for Health and Children once the Department of Health and Children has set out what meeting the standards will mean for the residential services for people with disabilities. They will then apply to all residential services for people with disabilities provided by the HSE (Health Service Executive), private organisations or voluntary bodies.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Health and Children in the development of the monitoring of these standards in the future.

The Health Information and Quality Authority will publish all inspection reports and will keep a list of all the services that have been registered, known as ‘the register’.

More information

The Authority set up a working group to help write the standards, made up of:

• people with disabilities
• parents of people with disabilities
• people who work with and advocate for people with disabilities
• people who provide services for people with disabilities
• people from the Department of Health and Children
• people from the National Disability Authority (NDA) and
• people from the Health Information and Quality Authority.