Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is the second group of amendments, amendments Nos. 3 and 4. This grouping is concerned with the definitions surrounding the concept and process of open disclosure in Part 4. Amendment No. 3 inserts section 7, which is the general definitions section for Part 4. Senators will notice that "health service" and "health services providers" have been defined extensively to ensure that the definitions capture the full range of health services providers available in Ireland, both on the public and private sides. Another key definition is "relevant person" which, in relation to a patient, is a person closely connected to the patient who may be present at any open disclosure meeting. The person can be a spouse, civil partner, cohabitant, parent, son or daughter or could be someone the patient has nominated in writing.

Amendment No. 4 inserts section 8, which defines the key concept of "patient safety incident" separately, highlighting its importance to the operation of Part 4. The definition follows the accepted international classification and nomenclature used in the World Health Organization Conceptual Framework for the International Classification of Patient Safety. The definition covers three things: the actual adverse events where harm is caused to the patient; no harm events, which are incidents that could have caused harm but did not do so; and near misses, which are outcomes that did not reach the patients but would have caused harm if they had.