The new National Incident Management System (NIMS) is an end-to-end risk management tool, the purpose of which is to provide the HSE and HSE-funded services with the information to manage incidents throughout the incident lifecycle, that is from reporting of incidents to management of investigations, to tracking of how the recommendations following such investigations are being implemented. It will be an important management tool for understanding and learning from incidents with a view to improving patient, service user and staff safety, while continuing to fulfil the legal requirement to report incidents to the State Claims Agency.
Phase 1 implementation of NIMS, which deals with the recording of incidents and which replaced the STARsWeb System was completed in June 2015.
Planning for Phase II is well advanced and will provide for management of investigation and the development of a standard suite of reports to support the management of incidents. Also, as part of this Phase II the HSE, in conjunction with the State Claims Agency, will be considering the format and content of information to be published and international practice in this area will be examined, in order to inform those considerations.