THE COMMISSION on Patient Safety and quality assurance was established in January 2007 to develop recommendations to ensure the safety of patients within the health service.
The original terms of reference state: "Having regard to the findings of the Lourdes inquiry and to responses to health system failures in other jurisdictions, the commission will develop proposals for a health service-wide system of governance based on corporate accountability for the safety and quality of health services."
The commission's membership is made up of - chairwoman: Dr Deirdre Madden, senior lecturer, faculty of law, University College Cork; Dr Richard Brennan, general practitioner, Kilkenny; Dr Tracey Cooper, chief executive, Health Information and Quality Authority; Dr Eibhlín Connolly, deputy chief medical officer, Department of Health and Children; Tim Delaney, head of pharmacy, Adelaide and Meath Hospitals, Dublin, incorporating the National Children's Hospital, Tallaght; Mary Duff, director of nursing, St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin; Edwina Dunne, national head of quality and risk, office of the chief executive, Health Service Executive; Paul Fox, process engineering manager, Bausch and Lomb, Waterford; Prof Muiris X FitzGerald, physician; Dr Mary Hynes, director of quality and risk, national hospitals office, Health Service Executive; Margaret Murphy, patient/carer representative, Cork city; Dr Alf Nicholson, consultant paediatrician, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; Tiberius Pereira, patient/carer representative, Dublin; Dr Ailis Quinlan, head of clinical indemnity scheme; Dr Gabriel Scally, regional director of public health for the southwest region of England, Bristol; Dermot Smyth, assistant secretary, Department of Health and Children.
(Dr Eibhlín Connolly replaced Dr Philip Crowley and Prof Muiris X FitzGerald replaced Prof Fergal Malone.)