Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The core part of this is patient safety. There is a financial cost involved for the State as well, but, first and foremost, this is about reducing and, where possible, eliminating harm to patients. A few different things have happened. In terms of catastrophic birth injuries, there is now a review group. It was set up, I believe, two years ago by an eminent obstetrician who had led national women and infants health programme. They are now doing what I would call root-cause-analysis reviews where there are catastrophic birth injuries.

The other thing that has been done this year is that Dr. Rhona Mahony led really important work in terms of looking at this, first and foremost, from a patient safety perspective, but then with a knock-on effect on claims. There were 30 recommendations and six themes in her report. We launched the report, I believe, four weeks ago, and it is now being actioned. Certainly, it is Dr. Mahony's view and it is stated in the report that there are further improvements that can and must be made.