Hospital chief insists 'no risk' from X-ray backlog

The Chief Executive of Tallaght Hospital has insisted that there is no risk to patient safety arising from the backlog of around 6,000 reports on X-rays.

The reports have yet to be typed and given back to the doctors who originally referred the patients.

Eilish Hardiman has said the concerns about the backlog, outlined in a memo written by a consultant at the hospital, are centred on the temporary voice-recognition solution put in place to resolve the problem.

And she said that any scans that revealed anything unusual have been prioritised, as have children's X-rays.

"We have a clinical governance process in place whereby… when the radiologists see an issue that they didn't expect or wasn't anticipated, or is a diagnosis (of which the referring clinician needs to be informed)… we have a process in place whereby they contact the referring clinician on that day and that is prioritised."