Quality, Safety and Improvement (QSID)

The Quality and Safety Improvement Directorate's (QSID) purpose is to lead and support the work of quality and safety improvement across St James’s Hospital.

The core work of the QSID includes:

• Safety, including adverse incident reporting, safety incident reviews and risk management
• Quality assurance for effective care
• Person-centered care, including patient and family feedback

Continuous quality improvement 

It is the aim of St James’s Hospital to meet the needs of all our patients and their families. We believe that it is important for patients and their families to give their opinion about the services they receive.  We will use your feedback to continue doing what we do well, and to make improvements where recommended.

COVID-19 information

The hospital’s current priority is the safe and effective management of the COVID-19 emergency for our patients and staff.  For that reason, the hospital’s patient feedback services are disrupted; we ask for your patience and cooperation in the following ways:

• If you want to raise a concern or make a complaint related to a current patient event or experience, please contact the Patient Experience Office by email or phone. Do not attend the hospital. The Patient Experience team will regularly monitor all the mail and calls received and will respond to any safety or urgent concerns promptly.
• The Patient Experience Office works with the hospital’s clinical staff to review the concerns and experiences reported by you. Currently, because of COVID-19, staff are not in a position to undertake reviews of non-urgent past events or experiences. Therefore, if you do make a complaint related to an episode that is not current, please do so by letter or email.

Please be aware that the review of your complaint is likely to be delayed and you may not receive a response from the hospital for some time.

Please read the hospital’s Patient Feedback information. This section provides advice on the information that you should provide to us if making a complaint and how your complaint will be managed.

Contacting the Patient Experience Office
Due to visiting restrictions, any person who wants to give feedback or make a complaint may to do so by contacting the Patient Experience Office team by telephone, email or letter using the contact information below.  Do not come in person to the Patient Experience Office.

Write to:
The Complaints Officer
Patient Experience Office
Quality and Safety Improvement
St James's Hospital
Dublin 8

Phone: (01) 410 3361 or (01) 428 4248

Email: patientfeedback@stjames.ie

The QSID team provides the death notification form to the families and next of kin of deceased patients.

To get the death notification form for your family member, please contact the Quality and Safety Improvement office by phone on (01) 416 2674.

Once the Death Notification Form has been completed for your relative, we will arrange for it to be posted to the deceased patients named contact by registered post. We can also provide further information for you on the death registration process which is in place for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it will not be possible to attend our office or the Civil Registration Office in person. Applications can be made to officially register a death or purchase a death certificate via phone, email or post.

Please click here to find your local Civil Registration Office. 

The death must be registered by a spouse or blood relative within a three month timeframe. The death certificate costs €20.00 per copy and €1.00 for copies for social welfare purposes. For more information, log on to www.hse.ie.

A range of information on bereavement support is available from the Irish Hospice Foundation. You can call them on (01) 679 3188 or look at the details on their website 

The Safety & Risk team routinely process and review safety incident reports and where appropriate, use this information to identify actions the hospital can take to reduce risks. Where indicated, the team, who are all trained in the review methodology frameworks will facilitate patient safety reviews. The purpose of a review is to find out what happened, why it happened and what learning can be gained in order to minimise the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future. These reviews are conducted in line with national policy in an open and transparent safety culture as a key tool for improvement.

The Safety & Risk team is available to listen to and engage with patients, their nominated persons, staff and services to improve the design, planning and delivery of care.

Contacting the Safety & Risk team:
If you have a concern for your own or a patient’s safety, we encourage you to speak directly with the local manager or clinical team in the first instance.

The Safety & Risk team can be contacted by emailing: patientsafety@stjames.ie