A new, anonymous way for patients to be heard
Website will offer patients the chance to make complaints and ask questions – but the HSE refuses to say if it will sign up
A CHARITY that fights for patient safety had its HSE funding abolished last year but is continuing its work thanks to help from the UK.
The Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ISQSH) is about to launch a patient safety website thanks to the support of Patient Opinion UK.
The British charity gave ISQSH the use of software worth £1m to set up patientopinion.ie, a website where patients can anonymously ask questions, make complaints and raise any issues.
Their comments and questions will then be forwarded to the relevant section of the hospital or clinic involved and those centres will be able to respond on the website.
However, the HSE would not say this week if it would sign up for the website. Without HSE backing, the site will not work. The website is modelled on the Patient Opinion website in the UK, which has proved highly successful. It took some years to establish itself but now the majority of NHS trusts have signed up and are using the site.
Hilary Dunne, chief executive of ISQSH, said: ‘This will be a place where patients can come. They can praise staff when things go well but they will have somewhere to complain as well, and it’s anonymous.
‘I had a lady ringing me about problems with her father in a hospital. I told her to put her complaint in writing but she didn’t want to rock the boat. It’s upsetting when you
hear things like that. The website will be a safe way to be heard.’
A spokeswoman for Patient Opinion UK, a non-profit group, said: ‘The idea for us is that the feedback is a powerful way of improving services. Around 10% of the hospital responses will indicate some sort of change. They might come the
‘The website will be a safe way to be heard’
next day in some cases.’
This dialogue with patients is helping to improve how medical institutions operate and is also helping to reduce legal fees.
The Irish site will be a free service for patients. Hospitals will not be charged for access so long as the e site is accessed by only a single e member of staff (there will be a charge for providing access to multiple staff members).
Ms Dunne said: ‘Smaller organisations can stay using it for free. It’s about people getting value from it. There will be positive feedback as well –in Ireland at the moment, staff feel they are getting a beating, so this is a chance to balance that as well as to criticise.’
When asked if the HSE would be using the service, a spokeswoman said it already had an online feedback service called ‘Your Service, Your Say’. However, this service has been heavily criticised for failing to respond to complaints.
The HSE service involves patients emailing yoursay@hse.ie. The email will then be forwarded to the relevant hospital. But a scathing Health Information and Quality Authority report on University Hospital Limerick, published on Friday, found that more than half of patient complaints made through this system had not been followed up one month after they were made.
HIQA also found there was no evidence that complaints were being reviewed by senior management.
A report last year by ISQSH found that 65% of hospital patients did not know how to complain to a hospital.
Of patientopinion.ie, the HSE spokeswoman would only say that it was ‘similar to other online forums available to the public’.
Since HSE funding was withdrawn, ISQSH has been reliant on charitable donations.