A licensing system for both public and private health services is being recommended in a new report.
The recommendation is part of the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance report published today.
Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney described the recommendation as the most significant in the report.
She said it set out a road map for driving improvements in safety and quality across the health service.
Minister Harney said that when implemented, the report’s recommendations will impact very positively on patients and their families.
Ms Harney said the current system, whereby anybody could open a hospital, did not adequately offer patients the protection they needed and deserved.
She also welcomed the Commission's recommendations to address what it said was an absence of accountability arrangements, such as quality assurance, clinical audit, and monitoring that involve professionals, especially doctors.
She said recent patient safety incidents could be attributed in large part to this absence of accountability.
The Minister will now consider the report with a view to presenting it to Government next month.
