HSE slams online hospital rankings

03-01-2007

by Ciara O'Brien

The Health Service Executive has dismissed a new website rating Irish hospitals as "without validation" and lacking in authority.

The move comes as the new site, Ratemyhospital.ie, released its first report on feedback from Irish patients on their healthcare experiences.

The site, which is managed by Irishhealth.com, was launched in September 2006 and has been compiling votes and comments from patients on their experiences of Irish hospitals to date.

The Rate My Hospital section is designed to increase transparency in the healthcare system, according to Irishhealth.com editor Niall Hunter. "What we do is a rolling opinion survey," he explained.

In the absence of official hospital league tables available to the public online, the site could provide a useful source of information for patients and their families.

The Health Service Executive said it was aware of the site's existence, but insisted that its own complaints procedure was an adequate vehicle to stimulate change in the health system.

"While we welcome all comments from the public on our hospitals, we would stress that the views expressed on the site are anonymous, without validation and, as a source, the Rate My Hospital section is not considered authoritative," the HSE said in a statement.

"Unlike the HSEÂ’s complaints system that allows individuals to feed back their negative experiences to the hospital -- creating an environment for address and change -- the rate my hospital criticisms do not allow for response."

However Hunter told ENN that the comments and ratings on the site were scrutinised before the information was published, and that the site was not there to publish comments on individual doctors.

Hunter said all feedback is vetted for suitability to avoid the legal pitfalls that have hampered other ratings sites, such as Rate My Solicitor and Rate My Teacher.

"We're not trying to facilitate people's grudges," he said.

In addition to the vetting procedure, the number of times a patient or relative of a patient can take part in a poll about a particular hospital is limited to once every month in a bid to circumvent the possibility of interest groups skewing results.

While patients may be happy to get their say -- more than 4,000 people have already posted comments and voted on the site -- the HSE is adamant that its way is best, and has introduced a new policy to help deal with patients' complaints.

"The new HSE Comments and Complaints Policy, 'Your Service, Your Say', was introduced nationwide from January 1 2007," it said. "This new complaints framework invites everyone to have their say about their experience of the health services, and about how services have been delivered. This in turn will allow the HSE to continually improve and develop its services."

There is speculation that the site may even drive the publication of official league tables on the HSE website. "There is a general trend towards increasing transparency," said Hunter.

Meanwhile, Liam Twomey, Labour's health spokesperson, said that while there was no substitute for an official report, with criteria that could be applied equally to all hospitals, unfortunately patients had very little alternative at this point.

With this in mind, the party has put forward proposals for a Patient Safety Authority which would be independent of the HSE and the hospitals.