Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 March 2023
1147. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Health the total number of adverse incidents reported to the State Claims Agency which related to the Health Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 in each of the past five years, and to date in 2023; if details will be provided of the outcomes of claims taken against the State in relation to the Act; the number of claims settled or ongoing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12311/23]
View answer1515. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Health the number of persons who are taking or have taken cases against the State alleging that their unborn baby was wrongfully diagnosed and subsequently aborted; the number of claims notified to the State Claims Agency; and the number of cases ongoing and the number of cases which have been settled. [13932/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 1147 and 1515 together.
The State Claims Agency (SCA) has a statutory remit to manage personal injury claims, including claims in respect of clinical negligence, on behalf of Delegated State Authorities (DSA's) including the Health Service Executive.
I have been informed by the Agency that there have been 133 incidents reported to them from 01/01/2018 to 28/02/2023 relating to Termination of Pregnancy.
Table 1 - Termination of Pregnancy Incidents reported per year
|
Incident Reported Year |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 (To end Feb) |
Grand Total |
|
Number of Incidents |
2 |
27 |
36 |
33 |
28 |
7 |
133 |
It is inappropriate to provide the years of claims as to do so could have the effect of identifying individual cases. The SCA has two ongoing claims from persons alleging that their unborn baby was wrongfully diagnosed with a condition sufficient to bring them within the scope of the Health Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018.
Notes
The information contained within this report has been extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as per the below criteria.
There is no specific field for these incidents on NIMS. Therefore, a key word search was completed on relevant text fields on NIMS of potentially relevant incidents reported in the relevant period. Following this, a manual review was completed to identify relevant incidents.
Criteria used
- All Healthcare locations on NIMS - Who was involved = Patient/ Service User.
- Incidents and claims have been identified by searching in the free text fields “Summary of the Incident”, “Type of Injury (Other)” or “Sub hazard type (text)” for the words “TOP” (termination of pregnancy), “STOP” (surgical termination of pregnancy), “MTOP” (medical termination of pregnancy), “Termination”, “Medical termination”, “Abortion”.
- Additional criteria have been used for the incidents as follows:
- Incidents reported since 01/01/2018 to 28/02/2023
- Sub Hazard Type is either “Labour/Delivery”; "Diagnosis”; “Surgical/Medical”; “Care Management”; “Clinical Procedures”; "Medication" or “Birth Specific Procedures”.
- A manual review was carried out on the resulting list of incidents and claims by the relevant SCA unit to determine relevance to the query.
- This report is correct as of 28/02/2023.
Definitions:
National Incident Management System (NIMS)
Incidents (which include claims) are reported using the “National Incident Management System”.
This is hosted by the State Claims Agency (SCA) for the HSE, other Healthcare enterprises and State Authorities. An incident can be a harmful Incident (Adverse Event), no harm incident, near miss, dangerous occurrence (reportable circumstance) or complaint.
Incident Reported Date
The date the incident was created on NIMS
Who Was Involved
Field detailing the type of person involved, e.g. Staff Member, Member of the Public, etc. This is the Highest level of person category on NIMS, as displayed in the three levels below.
Sub Hazard Type
Based on the’ Incident/Hazard Category’, this grouping provides a further breakdown of hazard types. This allows for a more detailed categorisation of the incidents recorded. For example, under the ‘Clinical Care’ hazard category, the sub-hazards include ‘Labour/Delivery’, ‘Diagnosis’,
‘Surgical/Medical Procedures’, etc. Similarly, under ‘Exposure to Physical Hazards’, the sub-hazards include ‘Slips/Trips/Falls’, ‘Fire’, ‘Ergonomics (include manual/people handling)’, ‘Temperature (excluding Fire)’, ‘Radiation’, ‘Non-Mechanical (including Person/Animal)’, ‘Noise’, ‘Vibration’, and ‘Electrical & Mechanical components’.
Sub Hazard Type (text)
A subcategory of "Sub Hazard Type" this allows the user the opportunity to specify the hazard.
Type of Injury Other
A field which records sub categorisation of "Type of Injury". Cites if there are any additional injury suffered by the injured party, e.g. fracture could be cited as the 'Type of Injury', and 'Cut / Laceration', could be added to the 'Other'.
Summary of the Incident
A free text field whereby a description of the incident can be entered by the DSA. It is important that the information provided is factual based on the actual incident that occurred.
