Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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213. To ask the Minister for Health the follow-up that will be undertaken, following the publication of the second annual report of the National Healthcare Quality Reporting System; if there will be investigations into variances in the figures across different hospitals; if actions will be taken based on the findings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17642/16]

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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214. To ask the Minister for Health the follow-up that was undertaken, following the publication of the first annual report of the National Healthcare Quality Reporting System; if actions will be taken based on the findings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17643/16]

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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215. To ask the Minister for Health why some figures on smaller hospitals were blacked out, in respect of the second annual report of the National Healthcare Quality Reporting System; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17644/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 213 to 215, inclusive, together.

The purpose of the annual National Healthcare Quality Reporting System (NHQRS) Report is to use easily accessible information to develop a better understanding of whole health system performance. The NHQRS was established to provide a broad overall picture of the quality of our health services. It is intended to demonstrate to individual hospitals and other health service providers the importance of examining their own data in order to improve the services they provide. It must however, be understood that the performance and quality of a service cannot be measured by one indicator alone. This is why the NHQRS presents an analysis of a range of indicators that reflect different parts of the services and allows progress and priorities in the health system to be identified. The NHQRS will help to inform many improvements in service outcomes for patients.

The information will inform my priorities as Minister for Health, it will provide intelligence and information for the 10 Year Plan for Health and I hope the Health Committee will avail of the opportunity to be briefed on this. It will also inform my Department's Statement of Strategy.

The Second annual NHQRS Report was published last Thursday 16th June. It is very encouraging to see improvements in many areas, for example in the areas of immunisation, uptake of cancer screening and survival rates for patients with breast and colorectal cancer which are improving at a rate faster than most other European countries in the OECD. One example of how this information will be used is to ensure that the cancer indicators feed into the new Cancer Strategy currently being drawn up by my Department. Similarly, the figures for stroke patients, indicate over 80% are admitted to hospitals with a designated stroke unit which, again, is to the forefront of other OECD countries.

I recognise that there are areas identified where further room for improvement exists. In particular, considerable variation can be seen between counties in rates of hospitalisation for common chronic diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, diabetes and heart failure. Identifying this variation is a first step to addressing the reasons why this variation exists and to improving it. For example, the information on COPD is already informing requirements in Primary Care and the National Clinical Effectiveness Committee (NCEC) COPD Guideline being developed by the HSE Clinical Programme for the management of this disease.

It is international standard best practice not to report rates for small numbers such as hospitals with less than 100 cases as outlined in the NHQRS Report. The number of cases for each hospital are, however, reported in the NHQRS.