New law to protect whistleblowers

WHISTLEBLOWERS IN the health service who provide information about mistakes or poor treatment of patients will enjoy legal protection from next month, Minister for Health Mary Harney has revealed.

Ms Harney said she had signed into law the provisions of the 2007 Health Act which lifted the threat of civil liability or penalty from healthcare staff making disclosures.

The new measure, which comes into effect on March 1st, was brought forward in response to a series of scandals in the health services, some of which might have come to light sooner if potential whistleblowers had not been deterred by the threat of litigation.

However, data on information provided about patient safety, medical errors and poor patient treatment will be exempted from Freedom of Information provisions so as to encourage the maximum level of reporting.

Ms Harney was speaking yesterday at a press conference to announce the compulsory licensing of all public and private hospitals and other healthcare facilities. This was the central recommendation of a Government-appointed commission on patient safety, chaired by Dr Deirdre Madden, which reported last July.

The Minister said the licensing system, to be run by the Health Information Quality Authority (Hiqa), would establish objective, mandatory standards and compliance with these standards would be legally required for every healthcare provider. The legislation to provide this system would be complex and was unlikely to be in place before 2011.

A systematic audit of clinical practice and outcomes for patients would be undertaken under the new regime, she said. “Had such a system been in place, practices which have had catastrophic effects for patients, for example, the pattern of interventions by Dr Michael Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in the 1990s, would have been picked up and stopped earlier.”

A steering group chaired by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, is to be set up to implement the rest of the commission’s recommendations. Licensing would start with acute hospitals and the system would be self-financing, she added. Dr Holohan has been assigned executive responsibility for patient safety in the health service.

Ms Harney said the aim of the process was to reduce “adverse events” in the health service, and to reduce litigation. Medical claims were costing the State €60 million a year, she pointed out. The Health Service Executive (HSE) welcomed the Minister’s decision to implement the report of the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance. Chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm said the announcement would support the efforts of HSE staff to raise quality and safety standards.

The president of the Medical Council, Prof Kieran Murphy, said the report provided a road map for the future with patient safety as the cornerstone of the health service.

Hiqa and the Independent Hospitals Association of Ireland also welcomed the report.