Patient safety package aims to avert future HSE health crises

Patients will be empowered to oversee early warning mechanisms in the health system and recommend changes to influence policy and avert future crises, it will be announced today.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar will announce the setting up of a patients council, a special advocacy group as well as an annual health survey — all which will support people getting care.

The patient safety package comes on the back of several scandals and tragedies which have rocked the health system.

A national advisory council for patient safety will have an independent chair and include healthcare and patient representatives. It will provide advice on patient safety issues, publish reports prompted by specific safety information or trends and also oversee patient safety data to act as an early warning mechanism.

A new national patient advocacy service, as recommended by a Hiqa report on Portlaoise, will provide advice and support to patients. But it will be independent of the minister and the HSE and will record patients’ complaints and also guide them to the relevant agencies where needed.

Lastly, an annual patient experience survey — already published this year — will be continued. This will use internationally recognised questions to allow comparisons to be made. Furthermore, it is expected to help guide future policies under health ministers.

The patient safety package comes after a number of critical reports and tragedies in recent years. This included a scathing Hiqa report earlier this year on conditions at Portlaoise Hospital which outlined harrowing details of baby deaths. The report said it could not conclude that services at the hospital were safe. It also found that the intensive care unit was not fit for purpose and raised questions about the emergency department.

The new safety groups are expected to help identify dangers or issues in hospitals, and advise officials how changes could feed into better services. “This might be acting on high mortality rates or specific treatments,” said a source familiar with the package.

The new groups will also allow patients to act and make warnings, but they will not be responsible to a minister or Hiqa and can make independent reports.