Public consultation on a draft Policy Framework for Open Disclosure in the Irish Health and Social Care Sector

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has launched a public consultation on a draft national policy framework for open disclosure in the Irish health sector.

Open disclosure is an open, consistent, compassionate and timely approach to communicating with patients and families when something goes wrong with their care.

The Sláintecare Implementation Strategy and Action Plan 2021-2023 (under Section 5 - Enabling Programmes), highlights the positive work underway by the department to help embed a culture of open disclosure in the health service. The feedback from this public consultation will inform some of the critical aspects of the Framework and support this important work.

The development of the Framework was informed by the policy recommendations of the Independent Patient Safety Council to the Minister for Health in 2021 on open disclosure in Health and Social Care in Ireland.

The Framework aims to further embed a culture of open disclosure across the entirety of health and social care services and in the practice of all health and social care professionals. The framework will apply across the public and private healthcare sectors in Ireland. This includes health and social care service providers, regulators, educators, and other relevant organisations.

This public consultation is being conducted by the Department of Health in Ireland. The consultation consists of an online survey which seeks the views and opinions of health and social care professionals, organisations and interested members of the public, on the some of the key elements of the draft framework.

The views and opinions collected will be considered and will be used to inform the final draft of the framework prior to publication.

An executive summary of the framework and the full draft framework documents are available to read below. Please click on the ‘Complete the survey’ link below to take the survey. You will be redirected to the EU survey site where you will be given further instructions on how to complete the survey.

Complete the survey.

Surveys can also be downloaded and returned via email. A PDF survey document is available for download:

Responses can be returned to the following email address:

opendisclosurepolicy@health.gov.ie

All responses to the questionnaire are anonymous. A consultation report will be prepared based on the responses to this questionnaire, however, individual responses will not be reported.

The findings of the report will inform the final policy document which will be published at a later date.

Any personal information submitted to the department will be treated strictly in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/67 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Please note people can request to see the submissions we receive under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2014 and therefore submissions may be released in response to an FOI request.

This is more likely to happen for submissions from organisations. This means that the requestor might get your answers to the questionnaire, however, any personal information included in submissions would be redacted prior to release. If you have any queries, please email opendisclosurepolicy@health.gov.ie

Access the department’s Privacy Policy.