Results 16,361-16,380 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: I very much welcome the opportunity to continue the discussions on the Supplementary Estimate for Vote 38. I and my officials have taken on board the discussion at our engagement last week. We also noted the specific queries made by committee members. In this regard, my officials have supplied an updated brief to the committee, which I understand was received last Friday. The brief...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: Good progress is being made on the national children's hospital. I spoke to the contractors on-site in the past few weeks and they believe they will finish their build at the end of quarter 1 of 2024. Some of the commissioning happens in parallel with the build and final commissioning happens when the build has been handed over. The HSE believes it can have children in the hospital as...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes. First and foremost, we have to be able to systematically identify the causes of patient safety issues and eliminate them. There is considerable work being done on that. There is, for example, a new obstetrics incident team looking at exactly these kinds of issues. We need to do that across the board. In fairness to our public service doctors, they spend a lot of time reviewing their...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes, there is much work ongoing. The HSE is using multidisciplinary patient safety tools to look at this to identify and minimise risk. This approach is embedded in the clinical strategies, for example, in the national maternity strategy. It is worth noting that analysis conducted by my Department shows there is a time lag of about nine years between an adverse incident occurring, for...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: I do not have much to add to that, other than to say I fully agree. That is exactly what we need to be doing. We need to look at this from a clinical and operational perspective to keep patients safe. Where patient safety incidents occur, we need mechanisms that get a resolution for the patient and his or her family as quickly as possible.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: Does the Deputy want to go through these one by one?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: The Deputy said he had four questions. Does he want to go through them one at a time?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: The projected end-of-year spend is €252 million against €350 million.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: May I make a quick clarification?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: The figure provided last week was €118 million, which is the figure here today. The Deputy, very understandably, asked for the breakdown for additional information, which is the €151 million. All the officials have done is to provide the extra information the Deputy sought.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: It would be useful if Nursing Homes Ireland recognised the enormous sums of public money which we, the Oireachtas, have all agreed they should get for PPE, for testing and tracing and for the various schemes the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has run with them, including most recently another €10 million. When Nursing Homes Ireland states it is disappointed with Government, all of...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: Sure.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: I will also respond to the Deputy's original point, if I may, because we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. It sounds like the Deputy is advocating that audits, which would be the quality control exercises, would not be done on an anonymised basis. That is the only-----

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: May I just answer?

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Service 2022
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (Resumed) (6 Dec 2022)

Stephen Donnelly: I really do not mean to. We need - I know we all will - to come at this in terms of what is in the best interest of women and men, everyone using the screening service. It is a debate for another day. Because the Deputy referenced it, I want to say that on the patient-requested look-back, the amendment we are bringing in, regardless of whether there is a discordance, mandatory open...