Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 11 December 2013
201. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Health the guidelines, protocols and management procedures in place in acute hospitals for the management of patients with sepsis; the oversight and accreditation systems in place to ensure compliance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53291/13]
View answerI have asked the HSE to forward details of the current guidelines, protocols and management procedures in place in acute hospitals for the management of patients with sepsis along with the oversight and accreditation systems in place to ensure compliance to the Deputy as soon as possible.
The Health Information and Quality Authority’s (HIQA) report into the care and treatment of Ms Halappanavar at University College Hospital, Galway recommended that the HSE should develop a national clinical guideline on the management of sepsis and ensure that all hospitals put in place arrangements for formal staff training on the recognition and management of sepsis and on the clinically deteriorating patients including pregnant women in line with the guideline.
The report also recommended that the Department of Health should immediately review the current arrangements in place to ensure the National Clinical Effectiveness Committee (NCEC) is adequately resourced to support the national endorsement of key national guidelines.
The NCEC through the processes of prioritisation and quality assurance of a clinical guideline reach consensus as to whether the clinical guideline has been developed using a quality methodology and is based on evidence.
Following on from the HIQA report I have requested that four national clinical guidelines are immediately commissioned and quality assured through the NCEC as a matter of urgency for the Irish health system. These guidelines are a National Maternity Early Warning Score Guideline, a National Paediatric Early Warning Score Guideline, a National Sepsis Management Guideline and a National Clinical Handover Guideline. I expect these guidelines to not only detail best practice but also to make recommendations for staff education and training. This is in order to provide for assurance of the competence of our doctors, nurses and midwives for these critical life-saving clinical issues.
I am pleased to advise the Deputy that significant progress has been made on this work to date.
