Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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368. To ask the Minister for Health the number of claims ongoing by the State Claims Agency in relation to late diagnosis and missed diagnosis in relation to failings in the CervicalCheck screening programme; the number of cases settled; the total amount paid out in claims to date; and the legal costs of the cases to date. [63067/22]

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 SCA have informed me that the information below has been extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

The criteria used by the SCA relate to claims on NIMS in relation to Cervical Check. Data is as of 12th December 2022.

The State Claims Agency (SCA) has received 378 CervicalCheck claims as of the 12th December 2022 including psychological claims brought by family members. In relation to the 378 claims received, 156 have been concluded.

The SCA cannot give a definite figure for CervicalCheck cases settled given the nature of the cases, some may be resolved by the laboratory and the SCA may not be privy to the outcome. Claims can be concluded by a number of means; including case settled, court award, indemnity received (from codefendant or third party), claim discontinued or statute barred, and claim intimated but not pursued.

It should be noted that almost all of the claims have been settled by the laboratories involved in the individual claims and, accordingly, the Agency does not, in all instances, have details of settlement payments made by those laboratories. This applies equally to the associated legal costs.

Legal costs amounting to €4,761,602 have been paid in respect of CervicalCheck claims to date. These legal costs include fees paid to mediation services, which is consistent with the SCA’s policy of using mediation wherever possible to resolve these claims in a non-adversarial manner. These legal fees also include matters not relating to the areas in which the State has already accepted liability.

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.

- Claim: A claim refers to notification of intention to seek compensation for personal injury and/or property damage where it is alleged the State was negligent. The application may be in the form of a letter of claim, an InjuriesBoard.ie application, or a written/oral request.