Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister would be disappointed if I was not giving out.

Surveys consistently show that health care professionals support open disclosure after a safety incident. A survey of US and Canadian physicians revealed that disclosure attitudes were similar in both countries, with 98% agreeing that serious adverse events should be disclosed and 78% supporting the disclosure of minor adverse events to patients. In another study, 99% of paediatricians endorsed reporting serious adverse events to patients' families.

Despite this, evidence from the UK and the US has shown that before open disclosure policies were introduced, only around one-third of harmful events were disclosed to patients. Evidence from a study in the UK which examined what has happened there since it introduced a legal duty of candour found broad support among those interviewed. One doctor said:

I have learned that being open is also quite a self-preserving thing to do. The worst thing is if the patients get it into their heads that there is some sort of cover up going on, then they get the bit between their teeth and solicitors get involved and it is all very difficult.

Another doctor put it this way:

If you are very honest and straightforward and treat the patients right, then often they take a generous view towards the mistake as opposed to getting very litigious about it which, I think, they are more inclined to do if there is a big cover-up and people are not honest.

With mandatory open disclosure for serious incidents, everybody wins. It is better for health care staff, patients and the health service as a whole. It would very likely reduce costly and drawn-out litigation. It will not place too heavy a burden on health care staff particularly if, as we are told, the HSE and NPSO are committed to training and encouraging a culture of openness without blame. Health care providers should have nothing to fear from a system of mandatory open disclosure if our amendments are accepted, but they will have everything to gain.

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