Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I will be taking the Adjournment on behalf of the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I thank the Senator for raising this issue on the Adjournment of the House. It is not the first occasion he has raised the issue and I appreciate his concern about the hospital, a concern which I share.

The Health Service Executive established a steering group and a north-east project group to oversee a programme designed to improve safety and standards across the acute hospital network in the north-east region. The decision was taken having regard to the issues raised in the report prepared for the HSE by Teamwork Management Services entitled Improving Safety and Achieving Better Standards — An Action Plan for Health Services in the North East, and taking account of the findings of the recent report into the death of Mr. Patrick J. Walsh. Led by the National Hospitals Office, the steering group has representation from key stakeholders such as clinicians and primary care providers. The project group is being led by a consultant surgeon from outside the region.

The Teamwork report makes a number of short, medium and long-term recommendations. It concludes that the present system, where five local hospitals deliver acute care to relatively small populations, is exposing patients to increased risks and creating additional professional risks for staff. The report highlights the need to develop a high quality and responsive emergency and planned service, in line with international standards, by developing local services within existing hospitals and other local centres supported by a new regional hospital.

The HSE published the report of the independent inquiry into the death of Mr. Walsh on 7 September last. I understand the concern regarding the report in Monaghan and outside expressed by the Senator in the House this evening. Following the death of Mr. Walsh in Monaghan General Hospital on 14 October 2005, Mr. Declan Carey, a consultant surgeon at Belfast City Hospital and an honorary senior lecturer at Queen's University, and Professor John Monson, professor of surgery at the University of Hull, carried out an independent and external review of the circumstances of this tragic death.

The report details the difficulties that arose in trying to secure Mr. Walsh's transfer from Monaghan to either Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, or Cavan General Hospital. It also exposes a failure in communications between clinicians and hospitals in the region. Since the death of Mr. Walsh, a new protocol on patient transfer has been put in place. It provides that all requests for transfer from Monaghan General Hospital to Cavan General Hospital or Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, should be granted and processed immediately.

The HSE has given the Minister an assurance that, in progressing the implementation of these reports, there will be no discontinuation of existing services until suitable alternative arrangements have been put in place. I am happy to confirm that on the record of the House. The Senator also made a forceful plea for the development of certain other services at Monaghan General Hospital. I will bring his proposal on elective surgery to the attention of the Minister.