Reilly: Issues raised in HIQA report on hospital already being addressed

Health Minister Dr James Reilly says numerous issues identified in today’s report by the State’s health safety watchdog on Tallaght Hospital have already been acted on.

The Health Information and Quality Authority report is expected to be particularly critical of the way the hospital dealt with overcrowding in its emergency department.

HIQA chief executive Tracey Cooper will present findings from the probe that focused on improvements needed in the hospital and in similar hospitals.

It will also recommend changes the State needs to make to improve the accountability of the acute hospital system.

Dr Reilly said yesterday many of the issues raised in the report had already been identified by his department, the HSE and Tallaght and acted on.

“Action was being taken in any event,” he said.

The investigation began almost a year ago when HIQA appointed a high- powered team comprising seven independent members and three members of the authority.

HIQA said information obtained through interviews will not be attributed to any individual in the report.

The authority met with patients and/or members of their families to discuss the care provided by Tallaght.

The report looked at the system of care for patients needing acute admission rather than individual incidents.

Dr Reilly was speaking at the launch of the new National Office of Clinical Audit in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in Dublin,

NOCA will design, develop and implement national clinical audit programmes in order to improve patient outcomes and promote patient safety in hospitals.

Dr Reilly said results from the clinical audits would be published as soon as they were available.

RCSI president and chair of the audit’s governance board, Professor Eilis McGovern, said patients deserved the same quality of care, no matter where they were in the country.

The first audit will provide a critical analysis of the outcome of surgical care.

Additional audits to be launched next month will look at joint replacement outcomes, intensive care and the average time spent in hospital for elective surgery.