Public reporting of quality indicators promotes the principle of a transparent and accountable health care system that encourages a continuing focus on improving the quality of care it provides. This works brings us a step further in enhancing the quality and safety of our system.

It is important that this report is not relied upon to draw conclusions on quality of care. That was not the purpose of the exercise. The data is mostly over five years old and was collected from the system before the improvements to collection and reporting of information that the hospitals were asked to put in place as part of the work to prepare this report.

The publication of this report is an important step in the development of this national reporting system. It shows that we can use a major IT system called HIPE which captures information on all hospital stays in all public hospitals to examine quality and safety of care.