EESC opinion: Patient safety

Key points

• The legislative proposal on patient safety, including the prevention and control of healthcare associated infections is consistent with an ethical, social and economic approach and therefore welcomed by the Committee. However, the importance of the fight against healthcare associated infections is such that a draft directive would have been appropriate.
• The Committee feels that there is a particular need to develop analysis of the conditions of occurrence of HCAI and adverse events.
• The Committee would stress the need for national policies and programmes to be established and developed, for public and patient information, for the coordination of reporting systems, and for staff training at State and healthcare institution levels.
• The Committee calls for the same monitoring efforts to be applied to medical treatment and the control of adverse events in all types of healthcare facility.