Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I looked carefully at this proposal to see its implications because I appreciate what the Deputy is seeking to achieve, namely, to provide flexibility in regard to the ability to change the system. There are a few issues to consider, one of which relates to how the current system is going. The reports that have come back are good. The Deputy rightly referenced the HIQA review of May of last year. It examined the information management practices for NIMS throughout the HSE. It recommended improvements in the system, as the Deputy highlighted, and the review acknowledged the importance specifically of the NIMS. The review states:

Incident management plays a vital role in patient safety surveillance and learning. NIMS, as the system underpinning incident management across the public health and social care system in Ireland is therefore an extremely important national health data collection. This review recognises the progress made by the HSE in its efforts to embed NIMS as the single designated national information system for incident management, patient safety, and learning across the HSE and HSE-funded services. HIQA also acknowledges the examples of good information management practices highlighted throughout this review, particularly in relation to information governance and use of information.

The Deputy quite rightly pointed out that there is more to be done. HIQA carried out a very good report on NIMS last year and the HSE is looking to expand it. My concern with the amendments, which is why I cannot accept them even though I fully appreciate the Deputy’s intent, is that they could undermine the prospect of us having an all-encompassing national system to be used throughout the country. It is important that the entire HSE and all the publicly funded services use the same system. There is a concern that one unintended consequence of the amendments is that they would give service providers freedom to say they will use something else. I appreciate that is absolutely not what the Deputy intends, but it is a concern. One of the main challenges we have, as has been discussed by all of us at previous committee meetings, relates to the importance of having a single integrated national data management system, rather than the multiplicity of systems we are currently using throughout the health service.

Accordingly, I cannot accept the amendments, although I fully appreciate the intent of them. It is essential to ensure there is no room for individual providers to decide they will adopt a new system, in order that everyone will use the same one.