A law that compels open disclosure of any serious safety incidents in a healthcare setting has now come into effect.

The Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 provides a legislative framework for several patient-safety issues – including the mandatory open disclosure certain serious incidents to the patient and/or their family.

It also provides for the mandatory external notification of those same events to the appropriate body.

The act was signed into law in May 2023, but preparatory steps were needed before it could be formally commenced.

There was also a “minor drafting error” that had to be addressed.

‘Poor communication’

The legislation contains a list of specified patient-safety incidents that mainly result in death or serious injury, and provides for the mandatory external notification of those same events to the appropriate body.

Minister Stephen Donnelly described the act as “a landmark piece of patient-safety legislation”.

"Poor communication between patients and health practitioners has been at the heart of many patient-safety issues.

“It is so important that when things go wrong, there is an understanding of what has happened and an assurance that it will not happen again," he stated.

HIQA’s remit extended

Under the act, the Health Service Executive’s (HSE’s) cancer-screening services must also inform patients of their right to request a review.

The legislation also extends the remit of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) into prescribed private-health services and private hospitals.

The Department of Health says that most of the act has now come into effect, apart from section 68, which requires “a minor technical amendment”.

This section inserts a new section into the Health Act 2007 to provide the chief inspector with a discretionary power to carry out a review of a defined type of serious patient-safety incident, where some or all the care of a patient was carried out in a public or private nursing home.