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Chapter 1: Introduction and Background
explore the factors that affect residents’ autonomy in residential care. Davies, Ellis
and Laker (2000) recommend that further work needs to be carried out that will
operationalise “resident autonomy”. This is important for an acceptable quality of
life for residents.
1.3 The Future Context of Residential Care
Older people living in residential care represent a unique group of people, largely
because care is provided in their place of residence.
The Health and Wellbeing for Older People, Western area (2001-2006),
recommended that individual residential care units should search for ways residents
could exercise more choice over their day and be actively involved in daily decision-
making. It further stated that making choices, no matter how small, contributes
significantly to the quality of life experienced by the older person.
Similarly, the HSE Corporate Plan 2005-2008 stated that in order to provide client-
centred care it is committed to delivering timely and responsive care in appropriate
settings. The plan stated that in order to achieve this it would be:
“Committed to listening to and learning from the experience of our
service users, partner service providers, staff and other stakeholders. We
will actively consult around planning, delivery and evaluation of our
services.”
(HSE, 2005, pp.18)
Including older adults in policy-making not only ensures that they voice how
services and public policies might best serve their needs, but also enables service
providers and policy makers to draw on older adults’ considerable experience and
expertise in order to effect change. The most recent national development to address
this has been the establishment of an independent inspectorate for residential care,
managed by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA). HIQA is an
independent authority that was established to drive continuous improvements in
Ireland’s health and social care services. The authority is responsible for setting
standards in collaboration with older people and healthcare providers for health and
social care services, and ensuring that these standards are met. Appendix 1