THE STATE’S health service quality watchdog is monitoring hospitals in the midwest and northeast although it has not launched a formal investigation, its chief executive has said.
Tracey Cooper said the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) received concerns about hospital groups in these areas relating to emergency department problems and other issues.
She said the HSE in both regions had drawn up action plans to deal with the concerns raised and that Hiqa had been monitoring progress on these issues over the last several months.
The Louth-Meath group in the northeast comprises hospitals in Drogheda, Dundalk and Navan while the midwest group is made up of hospitals in Limerick, Nenagh and Ennis.
Dr Cooper said that on foot of the concerns raised, Hiqa had sought assurances from the HSE.
“So instead of setting up an investigation which shuts everything down we said we are going to engage with you, we want quality improvement action plans, we are going to meet with you regularly, we want to know constant management of reducing that risk.”
Addressing the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children yesterday, Dr Cooper also said a report into the emergency department at Tallaght hospital, which has been drawn up by Hiqa, would have “substantial and significant implications” for the hospital system.
Dr Cooper said the report would “make national recommendations that would have an impact on how we run large hospitals across the country”. It would be published at the end of February or early March, she said.
Hiqa had not recommended the closure of any hospital, Dr Cooper said. However, the agency had, and would continue, “to advise and make recommendations where it believes that changes need to be made to services provided, including the types and range of services, if they are not safe for patients”.
In relation to the closure of the emergency unit in Roscommon last summer, she said the HSE had serious concerns regarding the range and type of services provided there.
She said the HSE had maintained that these “reflected the risks to patients in small hospitals that had previously been identified in the Ennis and Mallow [hospital] reports and that these risks were being compounded by the shortage of non-consultant hospital doctors at that time”.
