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IHRD-34

Independent SAI Investigation

Hyponatraemia Inquiry · Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths · Issued 31 January 2018 · Addressed to: Department of Health NI

Government responseDepartment of Health NI: Accepted (Mar 2021)

DeliveryDepartment of Health NI states no delivery position (Jun 2026)Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says in progress (Oct 2022)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The most serious adverse clinical incidents should be investigated by wholly independent investigators (i.e. an investigation unit from outside Northern Ireland) with authority to seize evidence and interview witnesses.

Hyponatraemia Inquiry, Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths · 31 Jan 2018 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

The Inquiry recommended that independent investigators outside Northern Ireland investigate serious clinical incidents. In June 2026, Minister of Health Mike Nesbitt stated that recommendations relating to serious adverse incidents (SAIs) were under active consideration in the Department of Health (Northern Ireland) to redesign the existing procedure, though independent investigators and powers to seize evidence were not mentioned (Mike Nesbitt, Jun 2026). The Minister added that further detail on how this recommendation will be addressed will be available once he has considered and agreed final strategic proposals (Mike Nesbitt, Jun 2026). Earlier, in October 2022, the department stated that initial work had finished and responsibility had transferred to its policy area (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Oct 2022).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 1 Oct 2026.

Report-level response context

The Minister of Health accepted all 96 recommendations together, in one sentence of a written statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 25 March 2021. That sentence is not a response to any one recommendation alone, and the Department of Health published no response to each recommendation. The Department's statements of 31 January, 2 February and 30 March 2018 contain no acceptance of the recommendations.

Government response

●Department of Health NI · Accepted · 25 Mar 2021

Words of: Mr Swann, Minister of Health, written ministerial statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly, 25 March 2021

My Department accepts the recommendations of the O'Hara Report in their entirety.

Extract from: Department of Health - Inquiry into Hyponatraemia Related Deaths (IHRD) Implementation Programme Update

Delivery

●Department of Health NI states no delivery position · 20 Jun 2026

The remaining 21 IHRD recommendations which relate to SAIs are under active consideration as part of the Department’s ongoing programme to redesign the extant SAI Procedure. These recommendations are set out in Table 2 below. Further detail on the extent to which each of these remaining IHRD recommendations will be addressed through the SAI Redesign Programme will be available once I have considered and agreed the final strategic proposals.

From: AQW 45206/22-27 (Northern Ireland Assembly written question: IHRD recommendations that reference Serious Adverse Incidents), Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health (Northern Ireland)

Site note: The Minister's written answer gives this passage once, for the 21 recommendations (counting the parts of recommendation 37 separately) it lists in its Table 2, and this recommendation is one of them. It gives no position on any one of them.

●Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says in progress · 28 Oct 2022

the 37 actions, where initial work has been completed, but where it is now appropriate to transfer responsibility for these recommendations from the IHRD implementation programme to the appropriate DoH policy area.

From: IHRD Implementation Programme Update - Departmental Statement October 2022 (document heading: Update from the Department of Health on the implementation of the report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths)

Site note: These words are from the Department of Health's document linked on this page. The Department's website asks automated tools not to fetch its document files directly, so the site cites the page that links the document.

Site note: The Department's October 2022 statement gives this passage once, for a group of 37 actions, and does not list the recommendations in the group. The site places this recommendation in it from the Department's per-action list of the same date, where Phase 2B holds 37 actions.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.