Patient Council makes appeal

PATIENT COUNCIL

PATIENT COUNCIL APPEALS FOR VOLUNTEERS TO HELP STRENGTHEN PATIENT VOICE AT UL HOSPITAL GROUP

UL Hospital Group Patient Council is currently seeking new volunteers to help in its campaign to improve services across the Group. The Patient Council was established in 2016 and provides an independent voice for patients, service users and their families. It gives patients and members of the public the opportunity to become involved as active partners in UL Hospital Group and advise hospital management on improving patient experience. The Council is composed of volunteers from the general public as well as members of the hospital management team. It is currently looking to increase the number of public and expressions of interest are sought from people who have had experience of University Hospital Limerick, Ennis Hospital, Nenagh Hospital, Croom Orthopaedic Hospital or University Maternity Hospital Limerick. John Hannafi n, Chairman of the Patient Council, said that in the course of its ordinary work and through its engagement on a wide range of hospital committees- including Nutrition and Hydration, the National Inpatient Experience Survey, End-of-Life Care, Patient Flow, and many others – the Patient Council was having a positive impact in improving services across the Group. “The pandemic has greatly disrupted the work of the Council as it has aff ected the entirety of the health service and society as a whole. As we look to exit the emergency phase of the pandemic, we are looking for new public members to assist the Council in meeting the new challenges and the new opportunities that have become apparent over the past 18 months,” said John. Niamh Hogan, Patient Advocacy and Liaison Services (PALS) Manager, UL Hospitals Group, said the Council was an essential element in promoting a culture of patient partnership across the six hospitals. “We have various ways of gathering patient feedback, through surveys, through research and quality improvement projects, through the complaints process and by other means. In the shape of the Patient Council, we also have a formal structure that meets regularly and through which the voice of our service users and their loved ones is articulated and acted upon. Only by having truly meaningful engagement of this kind can we build the trust and confi dence needed to improve our services,” she said.

John Hannafi n, Chairman, Patient Council, UL Hospitals Group Members of the ULHG Patient Council (l to r) Elizabeth O’Leary, Declan McNamara (vice-chairman), John O’Neill, Michael Ryan, John Hannafi n (chairman), Judy Ryan, Anne Fitzgibbon, Melody Buckley, Marie Killowry, Catherine English, Virginia O’Dowd, Janice Cahill, Niamh O’Grady, Prof Brian Lenehan, Colette Cowan, CEO, Niamh Hogan. Missing from the photo: Kay Caball, Jill Franz, Tammy Meaney, Bernadette Moore and Mike Dwane.

Nenagh’.“One of the things that members of the public remarked upon most often was the mere presence of the Defence Forces at the centres, which brought sharply to mind how we were all involved in an emergency response and a great national eff ort,” she said. Since the opening of the vaccination centres in the region, Defence Forces personnel have provided logistical support, managed stores and supported pharmacy services. Lt Col Pat Murnane, Offi cer Commanding, 12th Infantry Battalion, said, “It is very gratifying that the Defence Forces was able to assist the HSE in the nation’s hour of need and the level of co-operation we have had with HSE staff and the relationships we have built during the pandemic will stand to us in good stead in the future should we ever need to do something like this again. The fact that all of our personnel volunteered to put themselves in harm’s way with HSE staff across a wide variety of tasks from patient transfer to assistance in nursing homes to assistance in both the inoculation and testing centres, it was very gratifying to be able to assist with a 100% volunteer response.” Over 360,000 vaccinations have been delivered by UL Hospitals Group vaccination teams to date.