Government shelves plans for statutory patient safety authority

The Government has dropped plans to establish a patient safety authority on a statutory basis, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has confirmed.

The authority was to have been a key element of the health reform plans drawn up by former minister for health James Reilly.

Mr Kenny told Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin in a letter in recent days the Department of Health "is not developing any legislative proposals that would establish a patient safety authority on a statutory basis".

He said a patient advocacy agency would be established, initially within the structures of the Health Service Executive.

“The main function of the patient advocacy agency will be to provide national leadership for patient advocacy services,” the Taoiseach said.

In May 2012, Dr Reilly described the proposed patient safety authority as “a key component” of his health reform programme.

However, earlier this year the patient safety authority was one of the new organisations envisaged under Dr Reilly's plans for universal health insurance that were criticised by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as representing "a proliferation of quangos". As late as April 1st this year, Dr Reilly told the Dáil the patient safety agency would be "a critical part of any new health service".

He said the proposed new agency would be independent and “must be underpinned by legislation”.

However, he said that in the interests of getting it up and running quickly and teasing out any problems , it was sensible to introduce it on an administrative basis first.

‘Patient’s friend’

“What people want when something goes wrong is an acknowledgment that something went wrong, an apology for it going wrong and an assurance that it will not happen again because things will change. I envisage that the patient safety agency will be such a body. It will be the patient’s friend and the go-to place for patients when issues arise, be that an issue such as the serious issues that arose in Portlaoise hospital or a staff member being rude.”

The Department of Health said last night that further consideration of the detail of the new advocacy agency was ongoing.

The Taoiseach also said that Minister for Health Leo Varadkar was reviewing how best to develop a new set of health structures that would replace the HSE "and meet our key objectives of greatly improving the delivery of services for patients and the introduction of universal health insurance".

“This will include the development of a coherent, integrated health structure that meets the needs of patients and clients, and ensures clear accountability throughout the system.”

He said the Government intended to continue to make changes to aspects of the health system on an administrative basis while it developed the appropriate underlying legislation.