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

Amendment No. 20 amends the Long Title of the Bill to include the open disclosure provisions. It is a necessary consequential amendment. I hope that Senators will agree that these new provisions are timely and important. As Members of the House will be aware, Ireland's patient safety record has been compromised by a number of high-profile events and reports over the last three years which have affected public confidence in the health service. We have also seen that on occasions, patients and their families have felt unsupported by the system, have not been afforded adequate explanations following adverse events or have found the health service complex to navigate. These provisions mark a major step forward in creating a different mindset within the health service. Through the creation of a culture of open disclosure and emphasising the need to learn from the things that go wrong, we will see a safer health service emerge.The open disclosure provisions form part of a number of initiatives to improve the management of patient safety incidents. HIQA and the Mental Health Commission are at an advanced stage of development of standards on the conduct of reviews of patient safety incidents which expand on the national standards for safer and better healthcare. This set of standards, along with the mandatory reporting of serious reportable events provided for in the Health Information and Patient Safety Bill and the provisions intended for open disclosure will provide a comprehensive patient-centred approach to preventing, managing and learning from incidents. Delivery of health care is inherently risky. While it is inevitable that things will go wrong, there is much that can be done to prevent harm or error, identify and act on when it occurs and to learn from this to improve services.

As I have outlined earlier the provisions for open disclosure form part of the broad and ambitious programme of patient safety reforms being progressed by the Minister for Health. This programme of reform is aimed at a whole systems approach to improving patient safety.