Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What was produced yesterday was the third national inpatient experience survey. I was involved in setting up the survey when I was Minister for Health. I am glad it is being done now because the best way to find out what people think of the health service is to ask patients. Tens of thousands of patients are surveyed every year. Yesterday's results showed that 84% of people say their experience of our public health service is either good or very good, so notwithstanding the real problems we have in our health service, well over 80% of people who use it said that their experience was good or very good. That does not always come across in public discourse. I encourage each hospital, based on its own set of results, to compare itself against others. If a particular hospital is doing poorly in one area relative to another hospital, the best thing the former can do is to approach the hospital that is scoring well, find out what best practice is and try to implement it. We see enormous variation from hospital to hospital. Even on the issue of overcrowding, for example, hospitals that used to be top of the league table in overcrowding, such as Beaumont and Drogheda, are now the least overcrowded. That shows how best practice can make a huge difference for patients.

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