Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 March 2024
417. Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne asked the Minister for Health the payments that were made in healthcare under the client indemnity scheme; the number of those that were from cases in UHL, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11433/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe State Claims Agency (SCA) has a statutory remit to manage personal injury claims on behalf of Delegated State Authorities including the Health Service Executive. Accordingly, the SCA has provided me with the information set out below. As the Deputy did not specify a time period for the information sought, the SCA has provided information relating to costs of the clinical indemnity scheme, over the five year period, 2019-2023.
I have been informed by the SCA, that while the Agency publishes aggregate information on clinical claims and incidents, it does not publish a breakdown by individual hospital as to do so would effectively create a ‘league table’, which could lead to an unwarranted comparison, in the absence of proper context, between hospitals in relation to the provision of health services.
The total amount paid by the Clinical Indemnity Scheme in respect of claims relating to alleged clinical negligence for the period 2019-2023 is €1,698,998,133.
The information contained within this document was extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as per the below criteria.
• Relates to payments made in Healthcare under the Clinical Indemnity Scheme.
• HSE claims relate to claims against the HSE locations, i.e. Acute and Community settings, Section 38 service providers and the National Services and Disability sector locations. It does not contain any private scheme locations.
• The amount paid includes damages, SCA and plaintiffs’ legal costs (including VAT) and expert costs for the period 2019-2023.
• This report is correct as of 29/02/2024.
Definitions:
National Incident Management System (NIMS): Incidents (which include claims) are reported using the “National Incident Management System”, hosted by the State Claims Agency (SCA). An incident can be a harmful Incident (Adverse Event), no harm incident, near miss, dangerous occurrence (reportable circumstance) or complaint. NIMS is the system used by the delegated authorities to fulfil their statutory requirement to report incidents to the State Claims Agency and for their own incident and risk management purposes.
Clinical Claim: A claim which falls under the Incident Hazard category of Clinical Care. This category includes incidents relating to the provision of services of a diagnostic or palliative nature. It also includes incidents relating to the provision of treatment. Incidents present in this category will be related to Labour/Delivery, Diagnosis, Surgical/Medical, Care Management, Clinical Procedure, medication incidents or nutrition/blood related incidents.
Damages: The compensation paid to a claimant in personal injury claims for the pain and suffering arising from a physical and/or mental injury ( known as General Damages). The compensation paid to a claimant for out - of - pocket expenses incurred such as loss of earnings, vehicle damage, etc. (known as Special Damages).
Agency Legal Costs: Fees paid to solicitors and barristers engaged by the SCA.
Plaintiff Legal Costs: Legal Costs incurred by the Plaintiff and paid by the SCA.
Expert Costs: Fees paid to experts engaged by the SCA e.g. medical experts, actuaries etc.
Transaction Reporting Year: This refers to the year that payments were issued.
