Patient safety track record ‘appalling’

Senior HSE staff in charge of patient safety were told yesterday to reflect very seriously on their “appalling” track record.

“I just wish to God there was concern about the delivery of patient care in the service,” said Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty.

Ms Doherty was speaking after Roisín Molloy, whose baby boy died in the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise in 2012, said she felt hated by the HSE officials she had met.

Ms Molloy told Tuesday’s meeting of the Oireachtas Health Committee that HSE officials responsible for patient safety treated her with disdain.

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Ms Doherty said there was a director of quality improvement and a director of advocacy in the HSE.

“Both of them need to reflect very seriously on their record over the last number of years because it is not a good record and certainly not one I would be proud of,” she said.

The HSE’s national director of quality improvement, Dr Philip Crowley, was among the large group of health authority officials that attended the Oireachtas meeting.

However, it was not attended by the HSE’s national director of advocacy, Greg Price, who was also urged to reflect on his record by the Fine Gael TD.

Both officials declined to respond to Ms Doherty’s criticism

Speaking on RTÉ radio

, Ms Doherty said she had no confidence in the way patient safety was handled by the HSE and called for an independent inquiry into the authority’s failings in the Portlaoise controversy.

When Dr Crowley addressed the meeting he apologised to the families who suffered harm in the Portlaoise hospital.

He said there was now a policy on open disclosure, an approach that represented a culture shift in the health service.

Dr Crowley said investigations should be completed within four months and internal investigations would no longer be suspended in the event of legal action being taken.

HSE director general, Tony O’Brien, said the overall picture of events at the Portlaoise hospital was “not a pretty one”.

He said, collectively, the executive would be ashamed of what occurred in the hospital.

During an interview with RTÉ’s Sean O’Rourke, he said the greater proportion of events occurred before he was appointed director general

Mr O’Brien said two investigations would be conducted under the terms of the HSE’s disciplinary code. One would look at the absence of compassion while the other would examine the failure to escalate concerns about Portlaoise in the HSE.

The investigators, who will be announced shortly, would not be people who worked in the Irish health system. However, Mr O’Brien said it would be wrong to blame senior managers who looked for more resources but failed to get the funding.

Mr O’Brien said the Hiqa report on Portlaoise Hospital, meant that HSE decisions would no longer be “fully aligned” with political wishes.

Mr O’Brien said Hiqa had stated that, irrespective of policy decisions and irrespective of the resources available, the HSE, as the statutory body, was ultimately responsible.

“Patient safety must now trump policy decisions and must now trump an absence of resources in a way it has not done so in the past,” he said.

In future, the HSE would only undertake “sustainable” projects.

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