HSE admits that it failed to act on death rate report for over 30 months
Denis Naughten TD has described as “outrageous” the admission by the HSE that while actions were taken immediately to close Roscommon A&E department, it sat on the rest of the hospital death rate report for a further 30 months.
Last month, the Chief Medical Officer described the hospital death report (Health Care Quality Indicators in the Irish Health System: Examining the Potential of Hospital Discharge Data) as a “burglar alarm”, while not saying that you house has been ransacked, clearly it needs to be checked out.
Speaking in the Dail this evening (Tuesday) Denis Naughten said “ while the Department of Health told the HSE to check out the alarm, both organisations continued to let is ring for another 30 months, before even opening the door of the house to see what was happening”.
“This is what has just happened with the recent admission by Mr. Ian Carter HSE’s National Director of Acute Services who was quoted as saying that the review of the death data was only “now happening on a hospital by hospital basis”.
“This admission is even more bizarre when in March 2012 Minister Reilly told the Dáil that the reason why the report had not been published at that stage was because “the CMO, in conjunction with theHSE, is now in the process of further augmenting the analysis of the indicators to date with data for 2011 and 2012. Every public hospital in the country has been written to in order that they can ensure that the information they record and report for 2011 and 2012 is accurate”.
“It is important to remember that these figures were, we are told, setting off alarm bells within the Department of Health in July 2011, as per Minister Reilly’s comments in the Dáil on Roscommon Hospital, yet even after the follow up with hospitals clarifying the figures; a number of hospitals were still well outside the norm, with some hospital with stroke death rates 4 times higher than others and heart attack death rates 7 times higher than the best performers. Yet amazingly there seems have been no follow through to see what was happening in the individual hospitals to cause such mortality rates.
“This revelation raises serious questions for James Reilly, the Department of Health & the HSE. Their failure to act particularly on the revised data not only exposes the dysfunctional nature of the relationship between the bodies but more importantly another example where those in charge of running our health service are failing to put patient interests ahead of institutional interests.
Why did nobody ask the question why are these figures so far outside the norm and if this putting patients at risk?
Why could the Minister come to a very swift conclusion regarding Roscommon, but then fail to pursue other hospitals which gave rise to concern. It is only now 2.5 years later, that the HSE is asking these questions. But has this delay put patient’s health at risk?
Has it lead to unnecessary deaths?
Concluding, Deputy Naughten called on the Minister, the HSE and theChief Medical Officer to explain why they have failed to follow through on the damming data in the report.
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