AN AUDIT of the extent of unreported X-rays at hospitals across the State, which got under way in March, will not be completed for at least another month, the Health Service Executive has confirmed.
Two months ago, after the controversy over unreported X-rays at Dublin’s Tallaght hospital broke, the director of the HSE’s serious incident management team, Anne Carrigy, wrote to all hospitals asking them to confirm by return e-mail “that all X-rays in your institution have been reported by a radiologist or other suitably trained doctor”.
While hospitals were asked to provide information by return e-mail, the HSE said yesterday it still did not have the audit results.
Ms Carrigy also wrote to all hospitals in March asking them to confirm they had no unopened GP referral letters, after thousands of such letters were found to have been allowed to build up at Tallaght hospital. The HSE also said yesterday its findings in relation to this audit were not available yet.
In a short statement, it said: “The process to which you refer is still ongoing and it is expected that it will be completed in approximately one month’s time. This is a complex and intensive process which is being conducted in a very thorough manner in line with international best practice.”
A review of how 57,000-plus X-rays were not reported on by consultant radiologists at Tallaght hospital between 2005 and 2009, and how GP referral letters were left unprocessed at the hospital, which is chaired by former independent senator Dr Maurice Hayes, is expected to report in mid-June.
Meanwhile, Tallaght hospital has refused to release a series of documents requested by The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information Act, including minutes of hospital board meetings since April 2009, when the controversy over unreported X-rays may have been discussed. The issue of the backlog of X-rays and GP referral letters had been raised by the Health Information and Quality Authority with the hospital a number of times in 2009.
Up to April 2009, the hospital published minutes of meetings on its website.
It has also refused to release a full copy of a PricewaterhouseCoopers report which was compiled in 2009 and which criticised the running of the hospital, as well as correspondence from staff radiologists to management highlighting staffing shortages.
The hospital did not state why each element of the request was refused. It said some elements of it involved significant volumes of documentation and the “retrieval and examination of the records involved would cause a substantial and unreasonable interference with the work of the hospital”.
It also said some data fell within the scope of the Hayes inquiry and was not being released to allow this investigation “proceed to a swift and impartial conclusion”.