The Minister for Health Mary Harney has set up a Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance to undertake a review of patient care across the health system.
Ms Harney said the Lourdes Hospital Inquiry and other health care inquiries had underlined the need for such a review.
"I am determined that we learn the lessons from instances where patients have been harmed. We must do everything necessary in management and organisaion to elminate, as far as humanly possible, what have been called systems failures," she said.
Mary Harney
The Commission will be chaired by Dr Deirdre Madden, an expert on medical law and ethics and will include nursing and medical representatives, management representatives and two representatives of patients and carers.
It is scheduled to report to the Minister within eighteen months.
Ms Harney said it had come as a surprise to her on becoming Minister for Health that international statistics indicate almost ten per cent of patients admitted to hospitals suffer an adverse event while there.
"While individual error may play an important part in adverse events we must examine how hospitals and other services can be managed to create an environment in which safety and quality are central to everyone's job," she said. "Patient safety and quality of care are central, and will drive reform of our health services. I want every patient to have the highest possible confidence in the safety and quality of their care."
Mary Harney
The Minister has also asked the Commissiion to develop proposals for setting up a statutory system of licensing of public and private providers of health care.
"At the moment, anyone can open a hospital or health clinic. No licence is needed. This is not appropriate. We need a licencing system," she said.
The Commission will also work on proposals for better integration of the work of the different regulatory bodies in the health system.