11 June 2026

In Autumn 2025, concerns were raised in the public domain about matters of safeguarding within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, leading to an ongoing PSNI investigation into those issues. RQIA, as the health and social care regulator for Northern Ireland, considered that such matters may also raise concerns about quality and safeguarding issues in the Registered services conducted by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s Presbyterian Council of Social Witness.

On this basis RQIA proactively undertook a programme of inspections of the Presbyterian Council of Social Witness registered services. For some services, these inspections were in addition to the usual annual inspection programme. During this process, RQIA kept the HSC Trusts involved and updated on the progress of the regulatory work, and kept the Department of Health advised.

Those inspections have now all been completed. In summary, the inspections did not find cause for concern about the systems to support adult safeguarding. As with many inspections of Registered services, some areas for improvement were identified and these are included in each inspection report. Actions will be taken by the Presbyterian Council of Social Witness to address these and RQIA will follow up on those actions though our normal regulatory processes.  The individual inspections reports are available here.

A short summary Report is available on the RQIA website, which sets out the overall approach and findings, along with the individual inspection reports for each service.

RQIA wish to thank the Presbyterian Council of Social Witness and all of the staff in the registered services, who co-operated with the RQIA inspectors. Also our thanks to service users and their families who provided their insights and experience to the inspectors.

Should anyone have a concern in relation to a health and social service in Northern Ireland, they can contact RQIA’s Guidance Team on 028 9536 1990 or email info@rqia.org.uk, for advice and support.