Hiqa chief criticises time required to probe incidents

The time taken to investigate patient safety incidents is unacceptable, the head of the State’s health services watchdog said yesterday.

Phelim Quinn, the chief executive of the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), said that the process used, in some instances, to investigate patient safety incidents is “ineffective and non-transparent”.

He was speaking in Dublin yesterday at the All-Ireland Midwifery Conference hosted by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Royal College of Midwives.

Mr Quinn said that his earliest days in Hiqa were marked with the setting up of the investigation into the death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar in University Hospital Galway.

Ms Halappanavar died on October 28, 2012, due to complications of a septic miscarriage at 17 weeks gestation.

Mr Quinn said the young married dentist’s death had been closely followed by the events at Portlaoise Maternity Hospital where there had been a number of neonatal deaths. As a result of recommendations in both the Galway and Portlaoise reports, a new national maternity strategy was developed.

“I believe we are at a point where we need to see a strong commitment to its full implementation,” he said.

After Hiqa investigated critical incidents and service failure in Galway and Portlaoise, it demanded a code of conduct for employees and managers, the establishment of hospital groups, and an independent patient advocacy service.

“Three years on, these key recommendations remain ‘in development’,” said Mr Quinn.