Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is to seek an initial plan from the board of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) on implementing recommendations by health watchdog Hiqa arising from the spinal surgery scandal.
The Minister is to meet the CHI board on Monday – a week after the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) released a highly critical report on how non-authorised springs were implanted into several children as part of spinal operations carried out at Dublin’s Temple Street Children’s Hospital.
The CHI board, which runs the paediatric hospital service in Dublin, is to meet Health Service Executive chief Bernard Gloster on Tuesday.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said on Sunday that she would be “looking for an initial implementation plan from the board on Monday and directing them to work in conjunction with the HSE on the implementation of all their recommendations from the Hiqa report. I expect to get a further update on April 25th from the CHI and HSE on progress on the implementation of the recommendations.”
Following the publication of the Hiqa report last Monday, CHI chairman Jim Browne said he would be resigning.
In its report last week, Hiqa found the use of such springs as surgical implants in operations at the hospital was “wrong”, while failures in controls meant “children were not protected from the risk of harm”.
Hiqa found that use of the springs in these surgeries was an attempt to replicate an experimental surgical technique that was still under investigation at a hospital in another country, but in a modified way. The watchdog said that ethical approval was not sought from any ethical research committee in CHI for the introduction of this new technique.
Hiqa, in its report, made 19 recommendations.
These included that CHI “must review current organisation-wide corporate and clinical governance arrangements” to ensure clarity and effective assurance of safe, quality care.
Among other recommendations was that CHI “must develop a formal plan to address and resolve any outstanding issues relating to culture and alleged interpersonal relationship challenges within the orthopaedic services and any other services where such issues may be present so that patients are at the heart of service delivery”.
Hiqa also said that CHI “must review its overall approach to communication with children and families on an ongoing basis, particularly when things go wrong or when care needs are complex, to ensure a more effective, empathetic and child-centred approach”.
