Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Alan Kelly set out our position on a number of elements of the Bill, including notifiable incidents, anonymisation, lack of consultation with the 221+ group on the Bill itself and auditing. I will speak to amendment No. 14, which is in my name and Deputy Kelly's.

The Bill is trying to make open disclosure of certain incidents around patient care mandatory, but the quid pro quofor this open disclosure, such as it is, is that information or an apology given at an open disclosure meeting will be made inadmissible in any subsequent legal proceeding. That is a big element of the Bill. There may well be legal proceedings following on from open disclosures set out under the Bill and the use of open disclosure should not become a bar to legal action if harm has been done. As Deputy Kelly said, we cannot assume that everything is okay now. There will always be risks and people let down. That is why we need strong legislation and strong systems. We also need to ensure that open disclosure, such as it is outlined in the Bill, does not become a bar to legal action. Hence, our amendment is intended to make clear that the provision of information under the Bill to a patient who has suffered actionable harm would not become a bar to that information being admitted to a court in later legal proceedings if the information can otherwise be obtained in the ordinary way litigants use the rules of court in discovery of documents. I am interested in the Minister's response to our amendment. It is vitally important that this be accepted. This is one of many changes we think should be made to this Bill.

I turn to the duty of candour. In Dr. Scally's final report, published last month, there is a quote that has been repeated in this Chamber and elsewhere. He states: "The right of patients to know the truth about their health should be at the heart of all the interactions between health services, health professionals, and patients ... for a health professional, telling the truth to patients should be as natural as breathing." Those are the words he used in his final report. He went on to say that it was difficult to see how this Bill, as written a month ago, which is more or less how it is written now, subject to the amendments the Minister has tabled, would change things. Even with those amendments, that would not change. The duty of candour is not going to be delivered in this Bill. That fundamental cultural shift that is required to make disclosure as natural as breathing, which requires a strong legislative underpinning, will not be delivered in the Bill, with or without the Minister's amendments. That is why the Bill, unfortunately, is not fit for the purpose for which it is intended.

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