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IHRD-40

SAI Learning Informing Clinical Audit

Hyponatraemia Inquiry · Report of the Inquiry into Hyponatraemia-related Deaths · Issued 31 January 2018 · Addressed to: HSC Trusts

Government responseDepartment of Health NI: Accepted (Mar 2021)

DeliveryDepartment of Health NI says completed (Jun 2026)Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says completed (Jun 2023)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

Learning and trends identified in SAI investigations should inform programmes of clinical audit.

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

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In June 2026, Minister of Health Mike Nesbitt stated in a written assembly answer that the Department of Health assessed this recommendation on Serious Adverse Incident learning as actioned under Phase 1 of the implementation programme (Mike Nesbitt, Jun 2026). The Minister noted that this position was outlined in an update published by the department in June 2023, which listed the recommendation as actioned (Department of Health (Northern Ireland), Jun 2023; Mike Nesbitt, Jun 2026).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record above reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.

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 says completed · 20 Jun 2026

Five recommendations which reference Serious Adverse Incidents (SAIs) were assessed by the Department as actioned under Phase 1 of the Hyponatraemia Related Deaths (IHRD) implementation programme. This position was outlined in an update published by the Department in June 2023. The five recommendations are set out in Table 1 below.

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 five recommendations it lists in its Table 1 (40, 62, 65, 69(iii) and 81), and this recommendation is one of them. The same words are recorded on IHRD-40, IHRD-62, IHRD-65 and IHRD-81.

●Department of Health (Northern Ireland) says completed · 19 Jun 2023

IHRD Phase 1 Recommendations – ACTIONED

From: IHRD Recommendations Phase 1 & Phase 2 (Updated June 2023)

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: This is the heading of a table in the Department of Health's June 2023 list of the recommendations. It covers all 66 actions in that table together. It is the Department's table heading, not a statement about this recommendation alone. In October 2022 the Department also said that "full implementation of the 96 recommendations is by no means complete", which refers to the programme as a whole.

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.