Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 October 2019
273. Deputy Martin Ferris asked the Minister for Health the number of legal claims taken against University Hospital Kerry in each of the years 2009 to 2018 and to date in 2019, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42928/19]
View answerState indemnity, as operated by the State Claims Agency, is provided to delegated State authorities (including University Hospital Kerry), in respect of personal injury, third-party property damage and clinical negligence liabilities. The Agency has a statutory mandate, in respect of these liabilities, to investigate and manage to completion any cases arising. I am assuming that the Deputy's question relates to these categories of claims.
My officials have been advised by the Agency that it publishes risk and claims data at a national level and at a group level. At a location level it provides data only in an anonymised manner. This is to support the Agency’s risk management objective to implement targeted personal injury and property damage risk work programmes to mitigate litigation risk in State authorities and healthcare enterprises, in order to reduce the costs of future litigation against the State.
The Agency does not release data pertaining to an individual location as it has the potential of identifying sensitive information relating to an individual. Also, such information can be taken out of context and may lead to having an adverse impact on incident reporting rates within these locations. The Agency proactively supports the increase in incident reporting by a healthcare service as it is considered to be indicative of the development of a strong patient safety culture.
