Welcome to the June Newsletter. I want to begin this edition of our newsletter with a word of thanks to our many stakeholders who have worked with us throughout the year. We recently published our 2023 Annual Report which provides a detailed review of our activities and achievements during last year. Critical to our success in 2023 was effective collaboration with key stakeholders, listening to the voices of those who use services and publishing our work.
Our vision in HIQA “Safer services and better care for all” is clear but ambitious. During 2023, consistent with this ambition, our remit and functions across health and social services expanded to include new areas such as: International Protection Accommodation Services; the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 which extends our monitoring role to private hospitals and an examination of individual adverse events; and the Human Tissue (Transplantation, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Bill (2018). Growth and development is part of our journey as we strive to enable safer and better services across all care settings. It has been made possible so far through the hard work and dedication of the committed and passionate staff in HIQA and effective, strong relationships with key external stakeholders including providers and policy-makers.
In HIQA, we seek to ensure that our core values underpin the work that we do and how we do it. Two of these values are putting people first and promoting and protecting human rights. Our Residents Forums Reports 2022 and 2023, published in June, seek to amplify these values. The reports focus on the voice of those residents living in disability services. Sharing their lived experiences and highlighting what is important to them, help us to inform and to shape how we carry out our work, particularly in the area of residents’ rights.
In terms of putting people first, the sixth National Inpatient Experience Survey is underway in hospitals throughout the country and will run until 31 July. Almost 32,000 patients are eligible to take part in this year’s survey. I was delighted to have the opportunity to visit some of the participating hospitals last month with colleagues from the HSE, the Department of Health, the National Advocacy Service and others. We had the pleasure of speaking with members of hospital staff who are promoting the survey and to hear about a wide range of exciting and novel initiatives aimed at supporting sustainable improvements in patients’ experience of care in our hospitals. I would like to acknowledge the passion and commitment we witnessed from frontline staff in terms of listening and responding to patients. Through the programme, we will seek opportunities to share learnings from these initiatives.
I would like to encourage anyone who is eligible to take part in the survey to do so. The voice of participants is important and this survey provides an opportunity to address what matters to patients and their families.
The recent approval by the Minister for Health, of the National Standards for Information Management in Health and Social Care developed by HIQA is an important step forward in enabling reform and integration in Ireland’s health and social services. The National Standards will provide a roadmap for organisations and services to improve the management of their health and social care information and to support the effective use of information to track patient and service users within and across health and social care settings. We look forward to playing an ongoing leadership role working collaboratively with the Department of Health and with other key stakeholders in Ireland and in Europe in this strategic area.
Our public consultation on the draft health technology assessment on the use of an enhanced inactivated influenza vaccine in those aged 65 years and older is currently open. We are welcoming submissions up to 11 July. Our assessment has found that enhanced flu vaccines are safe and offering an enhanced vaccine to those aged 65 years and older would be a good use of resources. More details of how to take part in the consultation are available on our website.
In this issue of the newsletter, readers will also find more information about our recent attendances at conferences addressing infection prevention and control in nursing homes, as well as the recent health technology assessments and reviews that we have carried out into hip dysplasia and aortic aneurysms.
Until next time,
Angela.