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Minister for Health, Simon Harris, today welcomed the publication of the fourth annual report of the National Healthcare Quality Reporting System (NHQRS), which gives an overview of our health service.

Minister Harris said:

"Transparency and regular reporting of information on the performance of our health service is vitally important to informing decisions that service providers, policy makers and the public make about our health service.“

“As we all work to improve the quality of our health service, this type of accurate, timely information can now be used by the HSE, hospitals and Community Healthcare Organisations to identify areas of good practice. It can also be used to examine and meaningfully address those areas where improvements can be made.”

This report provides information on 35 indicators that give an overview of how our health service is performing as compared to international health systems.

The Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan said

“I welcome this fourth annual report which is coordinated and produced through my office. It is very encouraging to see the improvements in many areas, for example antibiotic consumption in the community has decreased for the last three years running. This is important to preserve their effectiveness into the future. More than 80% of patients report good or very good experiences of their stay in hospital in 2017. Mortality rates for heart attack have decreased by 42% over the last ten years. Our cancer survival rates for breast and colorectal cancer compare favorably against other OECD countries and rates of MRSA have fallen by 66% since 2006.”

The report also highlights areas for further examination and improvement. Uptake of the influenza vaccine for those over 65 years, has decreased each year for the last four years. Variation in hospitalisation rates between individual hospitals for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma remain. Hospitalisations rates for patients with COPD also remain very high.

Dr Kathleen Mac Lellan, Director, National Patient Safety Office, added

“This report should be used by service providers and policy makers to identify trends in healthcare quality. It is important that we use this report to highlight the areas of healthcare that are performing well. We also must review areas where we can perform better, examine possible causes and take follow up actions. This is the quality improvement process.”