Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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637. To ask the Minister for Health the discussions between the Health Service Executive and the State Claims Agency regarding the pattern of claims arising from Portlaoise general hospital, County Laois, over the past seven years; the action taken by the executive arising from these discussions in the interest of patient safety; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19921/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The HIQA investigation into safety, quality and standards of services provided by the Health Services Executive to patients in the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise found that the HSE did not effectively seek and use the information collected by the State Claims Agency to inform its patient safety activities. This echoes the findings of the CMO's Report into perinatal deaths in Portlaoise published in February 2014. To address this, HIQA has made the following recommendation in its Report:

"The Health Service Executive (HSE), the chief executive officer of each hospital group and the State Claims Agency must immediately develop, agree and implement a memorandum of understanding between each party to ensure the timely sharing of actual and potential clinical risk information, analysis and trending data. This information must be used to inform national and hospital-group patient safety strategies."

Work is ongoing between the State Claims Agency and the HSE to optimise the use of the data provided on clinical incidents (including Serious Reportable Events) by the HSE using the National Incident Management System in order to analyse trends and minimise risk in a timely fashion. The process for sharing this data will be agreed as quickly as possible in a Memorandum of Understanding between the relevant parties, as recommended by HIQA.

The HIQA Report also called for the establishment of an oversight group to oversee the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Report. The Minister has approved the composition and terms of reference of this Group.

The Minister has also written to the Director General of the HSE to request the HSE to submit a plan and timetable to implement the HIQA recommendations. This plan will be used by the Oversight Group to monitor the HSE's progress on implementation. A named person in the HSE will have responsibility for reporting on behalf of the Directorate to the Oversight Group each month on progress in implementing the recommendations.