FAILURE TO protect patient safety has a major economic effect as well as a human one, Minister for Health Mary Harney said yesterday.
The State Claims Agency saw a 20 per cent rise in patient-related payouts for the first eight months of this year when compared with the whole of 2009, she said.
“In 2009 the State Claims Agency paid out €48 million. By August of this year, it paid out €59.9 million. That is a huge increase, year on year,” she said.
Ms Harney was speaking after she announced a package of measures to improve patient safety.
“Patient safety has to be a priority for all of us, not only because of the cost in terms of human life and suffering but also the economic cost of not taking this issue seriously,” Ms Harney said.
“Patient safety issues, if they are not addressed, lead to more hospital readmittance, longer stays in hospital, litigation and so on.”
She was also critical of opposition to changing work practices in order to improve patient safety.
“While I can understand organisations representing their members, there can be no compromise. And there must be no conflict between the patient safety agenda and the industrial relations interests of our members.”
Yesterday, Ms Harney announced a public consultation on new healthcare standards by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).
Hiqa has published draft standards on its website, hiqa.ie, and is encouraging people to comment on them over the next six weeks.
The finalised standards will outline what is required for high quality, reliable services in hospitals and other healthcare settings and will describe what a good, safe, service should look like.
Hiqa director of healthcare quality Jon Billings said the public should know what they could expect from healthcare services, and those providing care should know what was expected of them.
Ms Harney said the Hiqa standards would underpin the hospital licensing regime that will be introduced in 2012. “That will mark a very fundamental change in healthcare delivery in Ireland. For the first time, those that provide services, beginning with acute hospitals and places where general anaesthetic and cosmetic surgery take place . . . will be required to be authorised by licence.”
Hospitals that do not fulfil the requirements could face closure.
Ms Harney said about one in 10 people admitted to hospital would experience an adverse event, and one in 100 events would result in injury or death. “Many of them are systemic failings and many of them are avoidable,” she said.
“Sometimes it surprises me as a non-clinician that we can perform life-saving and very complex procedures in our hospitals to world-class standards and yet we continue in Ireland, as we do elsewhere, to make very simple mistakes that can have dire consequences for individuals.”
Ms Harney said most patients accepted human error could be made. “We’ll never get to a situation where we have zero error-making, but what we can do, and what patients expect us to do, is to minimise capacity for the same errors occurring over and over again.” She also announced details of “Patient Safety First” – an initiative which healthcare organisations sign up to, to show their commitment to patient safety.
Ms Harney was the first to put her name to the initiative, followed by the new HSE chief executive Cathal Magee.
POWERFUL ADVOCATE 'I'LL BE MORE HAPPY WHEN I SEE ALL PROMISES FULFILLED'
THE PATIENT safety announcements were welcomed by Margaret Murphy, whose son Kevin (21) died in 1999 following a series of medical errors.
Minister for Health Mary Harney yesterday described Ms Murphy as “probably one of the most powerful patient advocates I ever met”.
Ms Murphy said it was a very positive day for patient safety. “Now I’ll be more happy with it when I see all the promises fulfilled and when I see implementation. ”
Kevin Murphy, from Cork, had a benign tumour which channelled calcium into his bloodstream. Blood tests revealed the problem almost two years before he died and his symptoms were “text book stuff”, she said. “But the shortcomings were around not recognising the seriousness of his condition and not taking the appropriate action.”
Ms Murphy said it took five years for the Mercy University Hospital Cork and doctors to admit liability and express their regret. The family donated the €76,000 compensation to two charities.
She said her son had considered doing medicine in college, but decided against it. When she asked him why, he said: “I’m afraid I’d make a mistake and somebody might die.”
Ms Murphy said Kevin had achieved his ambition as she had travelled the world as a patient advocate, telling his story in a bid to make sure that it could not happen again.
