Leo Varadkar: Ireland 'behind the curve' on patient safety

It will also see the establishment of an advisory council, comprising healthcare and patient representatives, which will give advice on patient safety.

The plan was developed in response to high-profile cases in recent years, including last year's report on baby deaths at Portlaoise hospital.

The reforms also include a yearly patient experience survey.

Minister Varadkar says that we need to catch up with other countries in the quality of our health service.

He said: "Ireland is behind the curve when you compare us with the NHS or other western countries on patient safety, quality and the way we collect our statistics.

"A huge amount has been done in recent years. A lot of people will see, for example, some of the things that have been showing up in Hiqa reports.

"It's not that long ago that there was no Hiqa and there were no standards and things weren't reported on, but we are behind other jurisdictions, there's no doubt about that."

Minister Varadkar says the best way to find out whether patients are happy with the health service is to ask them.

He said: "There's going to be an annual patients' experience survey. The general sense when you talk to patients is they feel our health service is very good once you manage to get into it, but we actually don't know if that's true.

"And we can't compare peoples' experience of different orthopaedic services around the country, for example.

"The only way you can do that is to get patient experience data."