Children’s services 'show good levels of care', continuing resourcing issues - Hiqa
James Cox
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has published its annual overview report detailing its findings in children’s social services.
The Overview Report on the monitoring and regulation of children’s social care services 2024 highlights the findings of Hiqa’s inspection, regulation and monitoring of children’s residential centres, special care units, foster care services, and child protection and welfare services operated by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) as well as at Oberstown Children Detention Campus.
Across all services inspected, Hiqa found that when children were allocated a social worker or other care worker, the quality of service delivered to them was strong.
Overall, good levels of care and support were found across children’s services, with children and young people telling inspectors about improvements they had seen and how services were supporting them.
However, challenges remain in the sector relating to the resourcing of services, from recruiting and retaining staff to sourcing suitable placements for children in care to live in.
Hiqa’s head of programme for children’s services, Eva Boyle, said: “While the results of our inspection and monitoring activity show encouraging progress, they are a pertinent reminder that improvement is a continual process. One of the most significant barriers to improving children’s services is the ongoing difficulty in recruiting and retaining skilled staff.
"Without a stable workforce, it becomes harder to provide consistent, high-quality care and to respond effectively to the needs of children and families. Addressing these workforce challenges must be a priority to ensure that children and their families have access to the right care at the right time.”
The report captures the feedback and experiences of children and young people. It also details how it is increasingly apparent that there is a need to urgently build in additional capacity within children’s alternative care services (foster care, children’s residential centres and special care units) in order to ensure that there is a range of appropriate regulated placement types available to meet children’s specific needs.
Some children are currently living in unregulated Special Emergency Arrangements and, while Hiqa has no legal regulatory remit regarding these centres, it has consistently expressed concern about children and young people being placed in such arrangements that are outside of its regulatory remit.
Ms Boyle added: “Expanding our regulatory remit is an important step toward creating a more consistent and robust system for children’s services. We welcome our ongoing engagement with the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and Tusla to progress this work, which will strengthen oversight and drive improvements across the sector. Our shared goal is to ensure that every child in care benefits from a safe, high-quality service that prioritises their safety and wellbeing.”
The report has been published alongside a summary report created specifically for children and young people using social services which details the inspection process, the findings from inspections carried out in 2024 and highlights what children and young people told Hiqa about their experiences of using services throughout the year.
