Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 December 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill 2015: Discussion

9:00 am

Dr. John Duddy:

It could be difficult. That is one of the difficulties with its practical implementation because, obviously, there are implications for patient confidentiality and the patient's consent to information being revealed to a third party. One way would be, whenever a patient is admitted to hospital, having him or her identify next-of-kin. If he or she is conscious, he or she should be able to understand some of his or her information would be revealed to the next-of-kin should an adverse event happen, even when they were not aware of it. That might be one way of doing it.