Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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572. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide details on the assessment of hospital-acquired infection; the comparative figures for other European Union member states; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21154/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs) are infections that are acquired after contact with the health services. The five most common HCAIs are surgical site infection, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, bloodstream infection and gastroenteritis. These can be caused by a variety of organisms, including Staph. aureus, C. difficileand CPE.

Ireland's work on HCAIs is progressed through the actions in Ireland's second One Health National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance 2021-2025 (iNAP2). HSE specific actions are delivered through the HSE AMRIC Action Plan 2022 – 2025, which is fully aligned to iNAP2. HCAIs also identified as a priority under the HSE Patient Safety Strategy 2019 – 2024. The Irish National Adverse Event Study-2 (INAES-2) was published in 2021 and demonstrated a significant decrease in the percentage of avoidable events classified as HCAI from 33.1% in 2009 to 22.2% in 2015.

HCAI data is included in the HSE Key Performance Indicators which are reported via the HSE Service Plan and are included in the reports of the National Healthcare Quality Reporting System Report (NHQRS). In addition, HCAIs indicators are included in the suite for the Health Systems Performance Assessment System of Ireland currently under development and a prototype visualisation platform is expected to be released shortly.

Ireland collects and inputs HCAI data into European and international reporting systems. These include the Acute Hospital Antimicrobial National Point Prevalence Study (PPS), Point Prevalence Survey of Healthcare-Associated Infections & Antimicrobial Use in Long-Term Care Facilities (HALT), the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-net) reporting and WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS). Such reporting is facilitated by the HSE.

As this query also relates to operational matters and data from the healthcare system, I am referring it to the HSE for direct reply.