Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 17:

In page 22, line 22, to delete “where” and substitute “when”.

I feel bad about the level of detail on these amendments. I know it is late and we have had a mad week but it is important. These sections are about apologies and they also are linked in with the mandatory point of view. It is clear from the definition of a patient safety incident in the Bill that we are talking about something that went wrong. In some cases, something went wrong and the patient was hurt and in others, something went wrong and the patient was almost hurt. The starting point is that something went wrong. Despite that, the Bill provides that an apology for the wrong at an open disclosure meeting is entirely optional for the health service provider. I find that mad. The fact that an open disclosure meeting is happening at all is a clear acknowledgment that something went wrong. It would not be happening if something had not gone wrong. In that context, I do not understand why an apology would be optional. If one bumps into someone in the street, or if one spills a person's pint, one says sorry. If something goes wrong, to say sorry is natural. We are trying to develop the natural human, cultural reaction. Given that the Bill provides very strong protections for apologies, where just because someone says sorry that does not mean they will be sued as a result later on - that is very much in the Bill - why then would we make the apology optional? The Bill states firmly that an apology is not an admission of liability and that it cannot be entered as evidence of liability in court. Even were this group of amendments to be accepted, it would not change that. An apology could not be admitted in court and it is not an admission of liability. The amendments do not change that. The apology is protected and I do not have a problem with that but we drafted our amendments to section 10 because apologies are incredibly important for patients and their families. We know this from the people we have met. An open disclosure should be about getting access to the full information but it also for them to say "sorry, we did not mean for this to happen". Quite often that could save the State a lot of money because people sometimes decide to take a legal action because they are fecked off because the health service providers would not admit they were wrong or they did not even say sorry. Not apologising leaves us open to more hurt and angry patients and in that sense it goes against the grain of the Bill.

I know the Minister of State will tell me the health service provider will, of course, apologise and if that is the case, that is great. Perhaps the Minister of State is not going to say that and will agree with me, which would be even better. If he is going to say that such providers will do it anyway, my amendments do not alter that. If such an apology is not made mandatory, it will not affect those providers that would do it anyway and consequently, it does not matter to them. It is the providers that might hide behind the fact that they are not so obliged with which we are dealing. Its absence undermines the confidence of the health service providers in the strong protections that are there. The Bill is very strong. Saying sorry does not mean that a provider will be sued in court or that they have admitted liability but it is a human, important thing. It is good for the service and is good for patients and we should make it mandatory, in that the act of a provider having a meeting about an open disclosure is a statement that the provider is sorry that something happened. It might be the case that it is saying that something happened and the consequences are very insignificant. I do not see anything wrong with that. That is completely in keeping with the Bill.