Firm reviewing care packages ordered to stop operating in NI after complaints

A healthcare company based in England has been ordered to stop operating in Northern Ireland after a number of complaints over its handling of social care patient assessments were reported.

Liaison Care is a private consultancy firm which is undertaking reviews of domiciliary care packages in Northern Ireland, including those of adults transferred from Muckamore Abbey Hospital.

Two families whose relatives were in the facility made complaints about the way in which assessments were carried out.

Now the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) has ordered the firm to cease all activities in Northern Ireland, citing the distress caused to patients and their families.

BBC News NI reported on Wednesday many of the complaints against the company.

On Thursday, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said "very serious" questions needed to be asked about the use of the company.

Liaison Care has been working with health trusts, with the aim of reducing costs.

On the company's website, it states its services are commissioned and if they do not make savings for NHS trusts, they will not charge.

Earlier this month, BBC News NI revealed that the Belfast Health Trust had written to a non-verbal man, 29-year-old Aaron Brown, to tell him his care package was to be reviewed by Liaison Care.

His father Glynn Brown described it as "grossly offensive".

The trust issued an apology and said his son should not have received the correspondence.

Brown said he welcomed the move to cease activities, but that questions still needed to be answered over how Liaison Care came to be commissioned within Northern Ireland.

"It has caused a lot of stress to a lot of families, including my own," he said.

"We already have the RQIA - their job is oversight and governance of all of the (healthcare) facilities.

"They should be properly resourced to do so. You don't bring in people for profit, whose boast is that 'if we don't save money on your review, you don't pay us'.

"That would worry me as a parent of a child in care."

Earlier this week, another parent whose son was abused while a patient at Muckamore said it was "traumatising" when her disabled son's care manager was asked to demonstrate over a video call how he reacts when distressed, including how he bites people.

The request was made during a three-hour call with Liaison Care which was reviewing the care of Timothy Jones, 31, who has severe learning difficulties.

Timothy was a patient at Muckamore for 12 years. His mother, Dawn, testified to a recent public inquiry into ill-treatment of patients at the hospital that her son had been abused there.

DUP health spokesperson Diane Dodds said the reports about how Liaison Care dealt with some families were "disturbing".

"Following those reports, I contacted RQIA and raised this matter in the Assembly Health Committee on Thursday."

She added: "The minister should now move to investigate the situation across all Trusts in Northern Ireland and whether it is appropriate to subject vulnerable adults to this kind of process as part of a cost cutting exercise."

Belfast Trust has apologised to the Jones family and said it was working with the company "so that this does not happen again".

However, on Friday the RQIA said it had "directed Liaison Care to cease and desist from its activities in Northern Ireland with immediate effect".

"In recent days, RQIA has become aware, including through contact from concerned families, of the commissioning by HSC Trusts of Liaison Care, a company which RQIA understands is based in England, to carry out activities in relation to services being provided to people in Trust care," it said.

Liaison Care is not currently registered with the authority, it said.

"RQIA also has concerns having learned that a number of individuals and their families have been contacted by the company, and is aware of the distress this has caused.

"This forms an important part of RQIA's ongoing enquiries into the nature of the work being undertaken, including in relation to the care and treatment of individuals subject to mental health legislation," it said.

RQIA added that issuing directions to organisations for them to cease operating is a necessary part of its statutory regulatory role and that it typically issues a small number each year.

It also said it will be engaging with Liaison Care.

BBC News NI has approached Liaison Care for a response.

Glynn Brown and Dawn Jones who both have adult sons with severe learning disabilities told BBC News NI they'd "never seen or heard the likes" of the questions asked by Liaison Care.

Both said they were shocked at how insensitive the panel was and the questions were not patient centred.

Dawn Jones spent more than three hours on a zoom call about her son's care, a panel from Liaison Care was in England while she was based at home in Belfast.

It is understood many health officials including some in the RQIA were unaware of the company's activities in Northern Ireland.

There are many significant questions, including who in Northern Ireland led on commissioning this company and what investigations were carried out into the work it's carried out elsewhere in the UK.