Tallaght hospital issues 'being addressed'

A number of concerns raised last year about the quality of patient care at Tallaght hospital’s emergency department have been addressed, according to Minister for Health James Reilly.

Dr Reilly was speaking in advance of the publication tomorrow of a report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) into the safety of care provided to patients requiring emergency admission to the hospital.

The patient safety watchdog conducted a year-long investigation into the running of the hospital’s emergency department after an inquest into the death of a patient raised serious concerns about overcrowding and the management of risk.

Minister Reilly today declined to speculate on what might be in the report other than saying: “A lot of the problems identified over the course of the year in Tallaght have been addressed”.

Hiqa’s report is expected to have implications for the hospital system as a whole, in particular the management of emergency units in larger hospitals.

Its investigation looked at issues such as governance, the board arrangements and provisions for acute care across the hospital.

It was prompted after the death of Thomas Walsh (65) from Kilnamanagh, Tallaght, who died while in a corridor – awaiting a bed – at the hospital last March.

At the inquest into Mr Walsh’s death, Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty raised concerns about the quality of care being afforded to patients in Tallaght’s emergency department.

A consultant working in the hospital’s emergency department, Dr James Gray, told the inquest he and his colleagues had complained about the conditions to Hiqa, the Human Rights Commission, the Health Service Executive and the Medical Council, but overcrowding was still continuing.

In 2010, Tallaght hospital was subject to another investigation after it emerged that thousands of X-rays had gone unreported to consultants while many referral letters from GPs had not been processed.