TWO years ago a scathing independent report warned that a tougher health watchdog was required for Northern Ireland and recommended the existing regulator's powers be outsourced to Scotland.
Sir Liam Donaldson's proposal to axe the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) was among a raft of measures that essentially called for the dismantling of the north's health service due to its multiple layers of bureaucracy.
Since the watchdog was first set up more than a decade ago as part of a new 'streamlined' service, there has been repeated concerns about the limitations of its powers in cases of sustained abuse in the nursing and care home sector.
Clifton Nursing Home in north Belfast in particular was repeatedly cited as a facility where tougher action was required due to a catalogue of failings by RQIA inspectors - including the inappropriate restraint of vulnerable adults - over an eight-year period.
Instead, care home owners were given 'enforcement notices' which acted as repeated 'final warnings' to make urgent improvements or face closure.
This inaction, not just in Clifton but in other institutions, sparked public criticism given that many residents, especially dementia patients, were unable to represent themselves in cases of alleged abuse.
Yesterday's unprecedented announcement that a Co Fermanagh nursing home is to be closed immediately due to appalling neglect of vulnerable residents is to be all the more welcomed and hopefully marks a new departure for an organisation that was at one time branded a 'toothless tiger'.
It is inconceivable in the 21st century that frail nursing home residents with Alzheimer's should go unwashed for a month while the plummeting weight of other patients should go unrecorded.
But this is what the RQIA team discovered during its spot inspection of Ashbrooke home outside Enniskillen last week.
Ashbrooke's owners, Runwood homes, is also the same company which took over the management of Clifton home in Belfast.
For the sake of the 40 residents and their families, one can only hope the regulator acts swiftly to re-house these vulnerable people in a more humane and caring environment.
