Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 June 2022
232. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health the rationale for the newly established HSE Obstetric Event Support Team given the statutory role of HIQA to investigate, monitor and institute compliance across the entirety of the health service, including all aspects of the maternity services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31338/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe HSE’s Incident Management Framework was launched in 2018 and updated in 2020. The HSE’s Incident Management Framework is applied to the management of individual incidents and is the mechanism for incident investigations in the HSE, including maternal deaths.
The HSE's Obstetric Event Support Team (OEST) is a new initiative to establish a team within the National Women and Infant Health Programme (NWIHP). The rationale for establishing the OEST was to provide objective oversight over a specified list of obstetric clinical incidents occurring within Maternity Networks and to ensure all learning can be actioned with national engagement with relevant stakeholders throughout the system, to lead to safer and improved quality of care for patients and families.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has developed the “National Standards for Safer Better Maternity Services”. HIQA have an associated monitoring and inspection programme and by their continued monitoring of services, HIQA acts to drive compliance with National Standards and promote quality improvement and shared learning.
