Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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690. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to introduce legislation compelling the Health Service Executive to have open disclosure when something goes wrong with patient care [11900/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As I said in the Dáil recently, measures are now in place and more are planned to foster and support a culture of open disclosure within the health service.

A National Policy on Open Disclosure was developed jointly by the HSE and the State Claims Agency and launched by my predecessor in November 2013. The Policy is designed to ensure an open, consistent approach to communicating with patients and their families when things go wrong in the provision of their healthcare. It is important that the patients and their families are kept informed and that feedback is forthcoming on investigations. It is vital that we establish the steps that need to be taken to prevent a recurrence of adverse events. The HSE has now begun implementing the Policy across all health and social services.

In addition, I intend to bring legislation forward to give effect to recommendations made by the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance to facilitate open disclosure of adverse events to patients. The Commission recommended that legislation be enacted to provide legal protection for open disclosure and said that such legislation should ensure that open disclosure, which is undertaken in good faith in compliance with national standards, cannot be used in litigation against the person making the disclosure. These provisions will be in the Health Information Bill. Because of changes to the Bill since the general scheme was approved by Government, I will be bringing a revised general scheme to Government in the coming months, with a view to publishing the Bill this year.