The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has commenced a public consultation on national procedures for clinical audit of radiological procedures involving medical exposure to ionising radiation.



Since October 2022, HIQA has been responsible for establishing national procedures for clinical audit of radiological procedures involving medical exposure to ionising radiation.



Clinical audit is a quality improvement tool central to providing good care and service to patients and people who use the services. The purpose of a clinical audit is to systematically review care and services against agreed standards to ensure that the standards are being met. The necessary actions should be taken where standards are not fully met. Clinical audit is an important tool to assure undertakings (providers of the services) that their services are safe, reliable and of high quality.



The national procedures document sets out the principles and essential criteria that services must follow to ensure compliance with the requirements of European Union (Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Dangers Arising from Medical Exposure to Ionising Radiation) Regulations 2018 (S.I. No. 256 of 2018) as amended.



John Tuffy, Head of Healthcare Regulation, said: “The goal of clinical audit is ensuring that services continually improve their service and people using them can expect safe treatments and procedures. We launched this consultation to include services, and stakeholders who use these services every day, in the collaborative process of developing these procedures.”



HIQA wants to hear the views of the Irish public on this draft document before it is finalised and invites members of the public to provide feedback on the document until 5pm on Monday, 31 July 2023.



Following this consultation, the document will be updated as necessary based on the feedback received. The final document will be published in due course.

Ends.



For further information please contact:

Marty Whelan, Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement 085 805 5202 / mwhelan@hiqa.ie



Notes to the editor:

• Information in relation to this consultation can be found here.
• HIQA is responsible for regulating medical exposure to ionising radiation in Ireland.
• The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has previously published the following documents:
• A guide to the inspection of medical services providing medical exposure to ionising radiation
• A guide to the inspection of dental services providing medical exposure to ionising radiation
• Assessment-judgment framework for undertakings providing medical exposure to ionising radiation, HIQA, 2019.

These documents can be found here.