Coronavirus: 'Breakdown in relationships' with health watchdog

Inadequate communication, breakdowns in working relationships and deficiencies in governance are just a number of issues behind the mass resignation of NI's regulatory board the RQIA in 2020, according to an independent review.

Last June, the board of the health watchdog that oversees Northern Ireland's care homes resigned.

They said they were not consulted on decisions taken during the pandemic.

That included the decision to reduce the number of care home inspections.

Health Minister Robin Swann ordered an independent review into the situation.

In a written statement to the assembly, the health minister said the report "makes for difficult reading for all concerned" including his department, the former acting chair, other ex-members of the RQIA board and the then-interim chief executive of RQIA.

The review is highly critical of how people who work in a number of governmental bodies communicated and worked with each other.

A number of these so-called arm's length bodies are there to ensure older and vulnerable people are kept safe.

Health Minister Robin Swann said he "regretted" that board members did not tell him they were "on the brink of resigning"

The independent review said that "whilst understandable" the resignations of the RQIA board members "were not necessary or desirable particularly during a time of crisis".

Mr Swann said he welcomed the conclusion.

However he also said that he "regretted" that the board members did not come to him to say they were "on the brink of resigning".

Mr Swann said he would have taken that "very seriously" and that he believed they could have "worked together to resolve the difficulties".

Alliance Party assembly member Paula Bradshaw, who sits on Stormont's Health Committee, told BBC News NI the report "doesn't make great reading".

"I have been concerned about this whole episode," she added in reference to a decision to reduce the number of care home inspections during the onset of the Covid pandemic.

"People were in place to provide accountability, governance and they were not included in the decision-making around the scaling back of these inspections.

"It was at a very critical time of the pandemic and I know things were moving very quickly, but the board members were there to provide that insight into how care homes were operating at that time."

'Cannot escape responsibility'

The review team acknowledges that if the department had responded positively to the resignation threat it believed engagement would have followed and would have ensure that communications and decision making were placed on a secure footing.

The report also makes clear that the Department of Health "cannot escape its share of responsibility for what occurred".

It stresses that if better governance had been applied between the Department and the RQIA the event "may have been averted".

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The recommendations put forward from the report are aimed at "providing the necessary clarity on roles and responsibilities and relationships".

The independent review states that the decision to scale back much of the RQIA's inspection activity and review programme was to align with the practice of other social care regulators in the UK and Ireland.

It said the rationale for the decision "was reasonable and reflected the scaling back of many arm's length body activities during the pandemic".

Mr Swann said the central problem was the lack of consultation and communication with the board.