Watchdog: Set up patient advocacy group within year

An independent patient advocacy group must be set up within a year to ensure that report recommendations are implemented because the HSE can no longer be trusted to introduce the reforms.

The Health Information and Quality Authority has told Health Minister Leo Varadkar the move must be made by May next year due to the problems uncovered by its Portlaoise Hospital investigation.

The 208-page report, which the HSE initially attempted to prevent being published, has outlined a litany of patient service failures at the facility over the past decade.

Speaking yesterday, Hiqa chief Phelim Quinn said the fact that a number of these issues could have been prevented, had previous reports been acted upon, meant an independent body must now be set up to ensure patient experiences are listened to and to guarantee the HSE implements called for changes.

“Our findings point to failures, over a number of years, by the HSE at a national, regional, and local level to decisively address numerous clinical governance and management issues,” he said.

“It is notable that local and national HSE inquiries and clinical reviews into patient safety incidents and significant service failures in Portlaoise Hospital were carried out.

“Had the findings and recommendations of these inquiries and reviews been attended to, Hiqa believes the risks to patient safety and service quality could have been substantially reduced.

“Among the recommendations in today’s report is the creation of an independent patient advocacy service to ensure patients’ reported experiences are recorded, listened to, and learned from, and reports published.”

The chief governance investigator of the Hiqa report, Prof Martin Turner, said that while previous reports were “not neglected” they were “not taken as seriously as they should have been”.

DISCOVER MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS