A NURSING HOME in Co Tipperary which is part-owned by Dr James Reilly, the minister for health, has been criticised in a HIQA report after an unannounced inspection there earlier this year.

Greenhill Nursing Home in Carrick-on-Suir was inspected in February, to appraise its progress in implementing recommendations which had previously been identified during a planned inspection in November 2009.

The inspection report – which is available online, and was spotted by today’s Sunday Times – said that the inspection’s findings “did not support satisfactory implementation of the required improvements as outlined in the action plan” following the original 2009 visit.

Of the eight recommendations made in that original report, “one was satisfactorily implemented, two were substantially implemented but further action was required, five actions were not met and were reissued to the providers.”

The two inspectors also found that “significant improvements were required in two core areas fundamental to the quality and safety of care provided to residents”.

Drug delivery

Inspectors found particular problems with the facility’s administration of prescription drugs – including discrepancies in the records of the medication being prescribed to patients and the records of the drugs actually administered.

One resident went eight months without a prescribed medication being administered, the report said, while another’s prescription sheet was only amended via a Post-It note when a new medication was added to it.

Further, not all the medications which needed to be administered in a crust format were identified and prescribed as such.

In a supplement to the report, outlining the nursing home’s response to the follow-up inspections, the home agreed “to review the current medication management systems and practices and put in place suitable arrangements, appropriate procedures and practices and written policies” in order to ensure the appropriate administration of medicines.

Reilly owns a 25 per cent stake in the home in a personal capacity, and has listed this in the Dáil register of members’ interests every year since his first election as a TD in 2007.

The 2001 edition of the register notes that he has placed his ownership in blind trust since his appointment as Minister for Health, in line with recommendations from the Standards in Public Office Commission.

Similarly, the 2011 register showed that Reilly – who also owns a shopping centre, including a medical clinic, in Lusk – was no longer a practising GP, had transferred his own practice to another GP, and was seeking to remove his name from the medical register accordingly.

Reilly does not have a management capacity in the Greenhill home; HIQA records list Dr Dilip Jondhale and Dr Vasudha Jondhale as the registered service providers in that facility.