Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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610. To ask the Minister for Health the amount the HSE paid out in compensation for medical negligence in each of the years 2010 to 2020. [25845/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The State Claims Agency (SCA) has a statutory remit to manage personal injury claims on behalf of Delegated State Authorities including the Health Service Executive. The State Claims Agency has informed me that the information contained below was extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) according to the below criteria:

- This report shows Damages Payments made from 2010- 2020 with respect to clinical claims under the management of the State Claims Agency.

- The figures relate to all claims under the hazard category of clinical care only being managed by the SCA under the Clinical Indemnity Scheme (CIS).

- HSE within this report relates to all Acute and Community enterprises, Section 38s, National Support Services and Disability sector. It does not contain any private schemes.

- This report is correct as of 30/04/2021

Total Damages Payment Made – 2010-2020

It should be noted that the amount paid out each year in relation to catastrophic injury payments is subject to considerable volatility depending on the number of settlements, given the very large size of individual awards/settlements, and whether awards/settlements are on a lump-sum, interim payment order or PPO basis.

The reduction in the Real Rate of Return, following the Court of Appeal decision in November 2015, added considerably to the cost of resolving catastrophic injury cases and the resultant inflationary effect of the change in the Real rate of Return is reflected in the figures from 2013 onwards, owing to the retrospective application of the Rate to the original High Court decision in that year.

Note, the % increase in volume of claims where compensation was paid from 2010 to 2020 is 116% and the number of these payments which were greater than €4million has increased by 367% over the same period. These numbers also relate to mass actions claims such as Cervical Check.

Table1: HSE Damages payments 2010-2020 on Clinical Claims

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.

Damages Payments: Can includes both General Damages and Special Damages

Clinical: A clinical incident on NIMS is one 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 relating to clinical procedures, birth specific procedures, medication incidents, or nutrition/blood related incidents.