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Patient Safety

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 December 2018

Tuesday, 4 December 2018

Questions (475, 476, 477, 478)

Stephen Donnelly

Question:

475. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the percentage of serious reportable events being notified within 24 hours to a designated officer. [50929/18]

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Stephen Donnelly

Question:

476. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the percentage of mandatory investigations commenced within 48 hours of the events occurring. [50930/18]

View answer

Stephen Donnelly

Question:

477. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the percentage of mandatory investigations completed within four months of the events occurring. [50931/18]

View answer

Stephen Donnelly

Question:

478. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the percentage of reportable events in 2018 reported within 30 days of occurrence to the designated officer. [50932/18]

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Written answers

I propose to take Questions Nos. 475 to 478, inclusive, together.

As these are service matters and the data is collated by the HSE, the questions have been referred to the HSE for attention and direct reply to the Deputy. This reply was taken as a composite with 50929/18, 50930/18 and 50931/18.

The Department of Health takes the management of patient safety very seriously. In November 2015, the Government approved a major programme of patient safety reforms which included the establishment of a National Patient Safety Office (NPSO) in the Department of Health. The NPSO was established in December 2016 to oversee a programme of patient safety measures. The programme of patient safety centres on initiatives such as the establishment of a national patient advocacy service, the introduction of a patient safety surveillance system, the measurement of patient experience and extending the clinical effectiveness agenda.

The NPSO is also progressing a programme of legislation in relation to the provision of open disclosure of patient safety incidents, the Patient Safety Bill, which will provide for the mandatory reporting of serious reportable events, and a Patient Safety Licensing Bill, which will introduce a regulatory regime for all hospitals as well as certain designated high risk activities.

In addition, on 25 October 2017, I launched the National Standards on the Conduct of Reviews of Patient Safety Incidents. These standards, developed jointly by HIQA and the Mental Health Commission, set out a new approach to the way health providers respond to, review and investigate incidents in order to determine as quickly as possible what may have transpired, and why, to ensure that they can immediately implement any improvements necessary to prevent a re-occurrence.

Finally, the Health Service Executive (HSE) finalised the review of its Safety incident management Policy and launched its new Incident Management Frameworks in January which will support implementation.

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