Concerns with fire safety and residents' protection at Stranorlar HSE facility

St Joseph’s Community Hospital in Stranorlar has been criticised in a Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report for not providing “adequate precautions against the risk of fire”, nor “adequate means of escape for residents and emergency lighting in the event of an emergency in the centre.”

HIQA inspectors, who inspected St Joseph’s Community Hospital in May, deemed the designated centre to be not compliant with fire precautions, protection, and governance and management. 

Inspectors displayed their concerns about access by unauthorised persons into the designated centre not being effectively managed.

Deeming the designated centre as non-compliant in governance and management, was put down to reasons by the HIQA inspectors to reasons seen to why it failed the fire precautions and protection categories. 

Inspectors judged the designated centre on 18 categories during their inspection, judging it as compliant or substantially compliant in 15 of the categories. 

St Joseph’s Community Hospital provides care and support to meet the needs of older persons and provides 24-hour nursing care. A the time of the inspection, there were 26 residents within the designated centre. 

Regarding fire precautions, inspectors noted a timber shed used for smoking purposes against a wall of the centre, a missing fire extinguisher, and part of a protected escape staircase being used for the storage of building materials. 

The fire assembly area was obstructed by parked vehicles, and its location was not clearly visible.

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Within the category of protection, inspectors criticised a system in place which “facilitated members of the public with uncontrolled access to the residents’ environment through the door between the designated centre and the short-stay unit” and that there “was no evidence available to provide assurances that the risk to residents’ safety posed by this arrangement was appropriately risk assessed and effectively mitigated to ensure residents’ safeguarding needs were met at all times.”

The designated centre, in response to the critiques, stated that all fire safety risks identified has been completed as of May 2025, and emergency lighting was being installed along the external evacuation route to the side of the Centre, which would have been completed by July 2025.

All audits, risk assessments, and quality improvement plans were to be reviewed monthly by the Person in Charge and the Registered Provider Representative. 

The registered provider (HSE) of St Joseph’s Community Hospital further insisted it had ensured compliance with the protection regulation by restricting access to the residential care facility to staff members through the use of key fobs, and that the previous press-button mechanism had been removed to enhance security. 

It stated that there was a “separate external entrance provided for entry to the short stay unit, which ensures that members of the public cannot enter the designated centre.”