Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Health Bill 2006. It is hoped that the theoretical establishment of the Health Information and Quality Authority and the placement of the social services inspectorate, which was established in 1999 on an ad hoc or temporary basis and is now being established on a statutory basis, can only result in the highest quality of standards and health care practices. For this reason I am pleased to welcome the Bill which may prove to be a landmark development for health services in Ireland. However, in the various functions and responsibilities which the Bill assigns to HIQA, I fail to see any reference to a dissemination of information to users and potential users of the service. It should be the case that a Bill dealing with information should provide for information to be disseminated to potential users.

The Health Information and Quality Authority would appear to be principally concerned with the evaluation provided by the HSE and by the social services inspectorate. It relies on its own internal information about nursing homes and standards of care. It is a transfer of information from one section to another and vital aspects of the information chain seem to be broken.

The proposed new appointment of a chief inspector of social services will gel quite smoothly with the functions and role of the social services inspectorate as an integral part of HIQA. The absence of the information provision is a grave omission from the Bill which provides for the establishment of HIQA, which will play a crucial role in the processing and provision of information.

It is right and proper that the operation of the social services inspectorate should be strengthened by the appointment of a chief inspector. Lines of communication with services and with the public should be developed and enhanced.

When I hear mention of communications and the HSE in the same sentence I sometimes wonder if the HSE knows what is meant by communications. There have been numerous examples, including the attempted establishment of a national children's hospital. It is evident that there has been a significant breakdown in communications between the three hospital groups. When two hospitals are not in agreement and the third hospital is naturally in agreement because it will receive the proposed children's hospital, this signifies a major difficulty with communications.

I was amazed to learn that the views of the paediatricians who provide these services on these sites were not taken into consideration by the group which was to decide on the site for the new national children's hospital. The same situation and similar upheaval is happening in Cavan-Monaghan, particularly in Monaghan General Hospital. The people on the medical board are expected to deliver the services although they do not agree with the proposed changes. Appearing before the Joint Committee on Health and Children, those who wrote the Teamwork report, which has been developed into a pilot project to be rolled out nationally, expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which their report was being implemented. They stated that it did not make common sense and was not practical to remove services prior to the introduction of better, safer services. The Minister and Professor Brendan Drumm indicated that new services should be introduced. The Teamwork report stated that new grades of staff should be employed and placed in situ before changes were made. These are examples of my concerns about communications in the health service.

The Health Information and Quality Authority should provide publicly accessible information on health services on its website, as is the case in other countries. The website, Irishhealth.ie, performs this function on an informal basis. Members of the public would benefit greatly from collaboration between HIQA and Irishhealth.ie on the provision of health information.

Irishhealth.ie provides a service known as "Rate my Hospital", which is popular among members of the public who are able to read about or describe the type of services they will receive or have received. It also provides information on specialist discussion boards and facilitates members of the public to discuss and tease out controversial developments under way in the health service. In addition, it hosts discussions on new forms of treatment and so forth. HIQA should consider providing similar services for the public.

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