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New directorate – QPS
WELCOME TO THE NEW QUALITY AND PATIENT SAFETY DIRECTORATE
DR ORLA HEALY LEADS OUT NEW DIVISION AS NATIONAL CLINICAL DIRECTOR QUALITY AND PATIENT SAFETY WITHIN THE OFFICE OF CHIEF CLINCIAL OFFICER
Quality and Patient Safety (QPS) has been reconfigured following the Corporate Centre Review, with the establishment of a new Directorate under the leadership of Dr Orla Healy, National Clinical Director Quality and Patient Safety, within the Office of the Chief Clinical Officer. This includes the merging of a number of functions from the former Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement Teams.
This is a positive development with QPS accountable for ensuring services meet standards for quality and patient safety and implement improvements to minimise patient harm, reduce unwarranted variations in healthcare, and achieve highquality patient-centred care. The new QPS function will take a leadership role in relation to the HSE’s response to safety incidents and overall improvement in quality and patient safety through the implementation of the National Patient Safety Strategy 2019-2024.
The Strategy will underpin all our work and establishes six key commitments to patient safety and outlines actions required to address these commitments. This will form the basis for the priorities of the new function. These commitments are: • Empowering and engaging patients to improve patient safety • Empowering and engaging staff to improve patient safety
SUBDIVISIONS
The HSE Centre Review set out a number of subdivisions of the QPS Directorate as follows: Patient Safety Programme: Patient Safety Oversight Committee and Reporting; National Medication Safety Programme - Lead: Dr Cate Hartigan Quality Improvement: QI Programmes and Initiatives; Clinical Audit Unit - Lead: Maria Lordan Dunphy
Incident Management and Open
Disclosure - Lead: Lorraine Schwanberg QPS Intelligence: Clinical risk; Systems & Analytical Intelligence – Lead: Dr Jennifer Martin
Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection
Prevention and Control (AMRIC) - Lead: Prof Martin Cormican
Patient Safety Strategy 2019-2024
• Anticipating and responding to risks to patient safety • Reducing the common causes of harm • Using information to improve patient safety • Providing effective leadership and governance to improve patient safety
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY
WHO WORLD PATIENT SAFETY DAY TAKES PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 17TH 2021. THE THEME THIS YEAR IS ‘SAFE MATERNAL AND
NEWBORN CARE’. World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to promote health care safety, increase awareness about patient safety and recognise the work already under way. In collaboration with colleagues across the health system, we will run a number of lunchtime talks/ learning events during the week leading up to Patient Safety Day. This will culminate in series of events on September 17th which may be accessed virtually over the course of Patient Safety Day. The daily events on September 13th to 16th will comprise elements of patient safety in maternal and infant healthcare, showcasing the work of the National Women and Infant Health Programme. In addition the new national QPS Directorate will showcase work already under way and introduce the new National QPS Directorate, structures and high-level plans. Links to a number of presentations/ videos will be available on the Patient Safety Day media page. Staff across the HSE are encouraged to highlight and celebrate World Patient Safety Day in their own workplaces.
