Patient safety being 'compromised'

Weak governance and poor working relationships between clinicians and management were compromising patient safety, the chairwoman of the Commission on Patient Safety has said.

Speaking at the annual conference of Irish Association of Directors of Nursing and Midwifery today, Dr Deirdre Madden said there was a need for a national network of patient advocates, facilities for patients to raise concerns at point of care and protection for whistleblowers.

Recent investigations and reports into the health service had revealed a lack of structured incident reporting, poor senior clinical leadership and an absence of consistent analysis of adverse events, she said.

A national mandatory reporting system for "serious adverse events" had to be established along with a voluntary system to deal with "non-serious" or near miss incidents.

A senior clinical leader in each organisation should have delegated responsibility to report to the board and reviews of governance should take place on a regular basis, with a legal obligation to monitor safety arrangements.

There should be a greater involvement of patients in health policy development and in health care organisations. Any board of management should include lay people as well as health professionals, and all new and existing employees should receive training in patient safety she said.

The powers of the Irish Medicines Board also needed strengthening to tackle the problem of unlicensed medicines, Dr Madden added.