Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 96: To ask the Minister for Health and Children when private health care providers will be subject to regulation and quality evaluation by the Health Information and Quality Authority; her views on the provision of cancer services by private providers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39282/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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In January 2007, as part of the Government's commitment to ensuring patient safety and quality in our health service, I established a Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance to develop clear and practical recommendations to ensure that quality and safety of care for patients is paramount within our healthcare system. The Commission's report - Building a Culture of Patient Safety - was published in August 2008 and accepted by the Government in January 2009. The Commission recommended that there should be a mandatory licensing system in Ireland to cover both public and private healthcare providers. It further recommended that the licensing system should be implemented on a phased basis, starting with acute hospitals and other facilities based on analysis of potential risk to patient safety.

My Department has already begun preparatory work on the development of legislative proposals for a mandatory licensing system to cover both public and private healthcare providers, based on explicit standards to be set by the Health Information and Quality Authority. I intend to bring such proposals to Government by end 2010. The Government also approved the establishment of a steering group, chaired by the Chief Medical Officer of my Department, to drive implementation of all the report's recommendations. This steering group was set up in June and has begun its work on an overall implementation plan to be completed within 18 months of establishment.

A number of private providers provide cancer services and these will be encompassed in the mandatory licensing system in due course. In the meantime, protocols for the clinical management of patients for the main site specific cancers have been, or are in the process of being, drawn up as part of the National Cancer Control Programme, in conjunction with national professional clinical bodies. In addition, I approved Health Information and Quality Authority standards for symptomatic breast disease services in May 2007. The aim of the standards is to ensure that every woman in Ireland who develops breast cancer has an equal opportunity to be managed in a centre which is capable of delivering the best possible outcome. In 2007, my Department contacted hospitals in the independent sector urging them to take steps to ensure that their breast cancer services complied with the standards and it also brought the standards to the attention of private health care insurance providers. My Department's Chief Medical Officer wrote to private health insurers and the independent hospital sector again last month reminding them of the importance of complying with these standards.