Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I agree with the intention of the amendment and everything he has just said. I will not be accepting the amendment because there is an independent patient safety council in existence. The council provides advice and guidance to the Minister for Health on a broad range of perspectives on the development of patient safety policy. It was appointed by the then Minister in 2019 and held its first meeting on 27 February 2020. By engaging a broad range of perspectives in patient safety policy, including those of the patient and the service in question, the work of the council leads to enhanced policymaking. The council members bring a wide variety of expertise and experience, which is important, including citizens, education, patient safety, health policy, healthcare leadership and more.

The council is chaired by Ms Noeline Blackwell who we are all very aware of. She is a person of excellent standing and CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. To the Deputy's point, the council obviously needs to meet and does so two to three times a year. It also agrees on an annual work programme. As part of the 2020 programme, the council was asked by the then Minister to carry out some work in the area of open disclosure. Last year, it provided me with recommendations on a national policy framework for open disclosure in healthcare in Ireland. I would be very happy to share that report with the committee. I will check if it has been published, but I certainly see no reason why we should not provide it. This framework is very much to assist organisations and clinicians to apply the principles of open disclosure and to communicate with patients where healthcare does not go to plan. The framework is now being drafted and it will sit along this legislation to give guidance to healthcare organisations.

In short, I agree with the Deputy's points. We have quite a robust council in place under an excellent chair that is already looking at open disclosure. I propose, because I agree with everything the Deputy said, that the committee or I could write to the Independent Patient Safety Council and ask it in whatever the appropriate period is, possibly a year after operation, to do a review and report back to the Oireachtas and me with its findings. Would that work?