Staff at Tallaght Hospital may shortly be told they can report errors in medication without fear of punishment.
The move, which is under consideration by the hospital board, is meant to boost what is seen as a poor level of reporting by staff.
Patients affected by medication errors must be told promptly about what has occurred, although the consultant in charge of the patient must approve of the disclosure.
Medication errors include giving medicine to the wrong patient, failing to give medication at all or giving wrong doses.
Such errors account for 25 per cent of all medical errors in hospitals, according to a briefing document prepared by Tallaght Hospital's Drugs and Therapeutics Committee.
The level of reporting errors at Tallaght compares poorly with best practice in the United States, the document says. Fear of being punished or criticised is among the factors responsible. There is also a degree of cynicism on whether there is any point in reporting errors.
Since Dr Karen Robinson was appointed Drug Safety Co-ordinator in March she has received more reports of medication errors than in all of 1999 and 2000 combined.
A windowless security office surprised management consultants drawing up a report on space problems at Tallaght Hospital. "Given the high priority that the hospital places on security, it was surprising to see that the security office in the main entrance has no window to observe what is happening", the report by Transition Management Ltd noted. There is also insufficient space for the number of cameras required by a hospital of its size. The report found serious space shortages throughout the relatively new hospital.
Staff at Cork University Hospital are to be trained in recognition of women and men who are victims of domestic violence and in how to treat them. The hospital believes it is the first to draw up a policy to deal with domestic violence affecting both genders.
St Luke's Hospital in Dublin is still feeling the effects of the death from cancer in June of the Coronation Street character Alma Sedgewick. The episodes leading up to her death sparked a big increase in demand for cervical screening. Where it was taking up to 10 weeks for St Luke's to send back the results of smear tests at the start of the year, this rose to 13 weeks in May. The time lag is now down to 11 to 12 weeks but is not expected to improve significantly in the short term.
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