Data used to shut Roscommon hospital unit is challenged

DATA USED to support the closure of Roscommon hospital’s emergency unit has been challenged by Senator John Crown, a cancer specialist.

Dr Crown said that the Government had maintained official data had shown there was a 25 per cent mortality rate following a heart attack in Roscommon hospital compared to a 5 per cent rate in Galway.

The basis of this data was now in question, he said.

He called on Minister for Health James Reilly to clarify the situation, to publish the full statistical report on healthcare outcomes on which the data was based and to correct the record where necessary.

Dr Crown pointed to comments in relation to an unpublished report on Health Care Quality Indictors in the Irish Health System by Dr Jennifer Martin of the Department of Health at an Oireachtas committee earlier this month.

Dr Martin told the committee the aim of the report was to look at the quality of the data, not the care provided in hospitals.

She said while the report was not intended to be used to assess quality of care, “when a number came up in relation to Roscommon County Hospital, it would not have been in the interests of patient safety to ignore it and say, yes, we are convinced it is due to the quality of data”.

She said that subsequent analysis undertaken by the hospital had “highlighted limitations in the quality of data and have been more reassuring on the quality of care provided”.

Dr Crown said serious questions stood over the quality of the statistics quoted as the proximate reason for the urgent closure of Roscommon’s emergency unit.

“Given what we know about the impact of absolutely optimal coronary care, these figures were not plausible. I have checked with colleagues in coronary care and these figures are not credible.

“I sought clarification from Roscommon and was shown the raw data in relation to coronary care and survival and it bore no resemblance to the quoted 25 per cent figure.”

Dr Crown said the data drawn from the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (Hipe) system was too crude and not a reliable basis on which to assess outcomes in specialist units.

He said that a methodologically sound and peer-reviewed audit would be needed to provide this type of information.

Dr Crown said that if, as appeared to be the case, the Minister was provided with inaccurate information, he was owed an apology.

In an engagement with Dr Crown on Twitter yesterday, Dr Reilly’s personal assistant, Tom O’Leary, said the Health Information and Quality Authority had said there was no option but to close the Roscommon unit, despite the Minister having sought alternatives. He said that the Hipe data “came later and was not used in the original decision”.

Department of Health sources said the Minister had referred to a 21.3 per cent mortality rate at Roscommon.