Over €21K for catering at patient safety event

Overall expenditure for the two-day event, which took place last October at The Printworks, Dublin Castle, totalled over €52,000.

Hiring the venue cost the Department €8,856, payable to the Office of Public Works (OPW), while a deposit of €984 was also listed in the data published under Freedom of Information legislation.

Technical support, provided by Avtek Solutions, amounted to €7,822. A total of €3,034 was paid to Aston Organisation Development, covering a speaker fee of €2,900 and an additional €134 in expenses for speaker Prof Michael West.

A fee of €2,097 was paid to Total Expo for hire of poster boards, while photography by Conor McCabe Photography totalled €1,968. Some €811 was paid to Snap Design for branded pens, while the hiring of sofas for discussion at the conference cost €344, payable to Budget Event Hire.  Typesetting and printing of the conference programme was provided by Essentra Packaging at a cost of €991, while €688 was paid to the same company for lanyards for badges and €639 for printing of the badges.

Bed and breakfast for three speakers at The Clarence Hotel, Dublin, came to a total of €555.

The conference was attended by over 500 delegates, including health professionals, regulators, policy-makers, educators, researchers, health service managers and patient representatives.

The theme of the conference was ‘Team-working for Patient Safety’ and international speakers included Prof West of the King’s Fund and Mr David Garbutt, Chair of the Scottish Ambulance Service, speaking on clinical governance. Prof Niek Klazinga of the OECD outlined the financial burden that poor patient safety imposes on health service budgets.

The importance of patients as partners to ensure patient safety was also highlighted at the conference, including the development of a Public Involvement Framework by DCU for the National Clinical Effectiveness Committee.