Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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117. To ask the Minister for Health the number of claims notified or the proceedings that have been issued against CervicalCheck regarding the alleged misreading of smear tests in each of the past five years and to date in 2022 (details supplied); the number of claims which came from women affected by the scandal; the number which were from the families surviving women who died allegedly as a result of the misreading of smear tests (details supplied); and the number of claims received by the CervicalCheck Tribunal. [37589/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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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 (DSAs) including the Health Service Executive.

I have been informed by the SCA that the information contained within the attached document was extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as per the criteria below.

Criteria usedQuestion 1- Claims received between 01/01/2017 to 30/06/2022.

Question 2- Date Proceedings served between 01/01/2017 to 30/06/2022.

Question 4- Claims received between 01/01/2017 to 30/06/2022.- Incident Hazard Category equals ‘Clinical Care’.

Question 5- Claims received between 01/01/2017 to 30/06/2022.- Incident Hazard Category equals ’Exposure to Psychological hazards’- Sub Hazard type equals ‘Wrongful Death’

Question 1- Cervical Cancer NSS claims received between 2017 & 2022

Table 1: Claims received between 01/01/2017 & 30/06/2022

Question 2 - Cervical Cancer NSS claims with proceedings served between 2017 & 2022

The table below reflects claims where proceedings have been served by plaintiffs from 2017 to 2022 YTD. Proceedings may be issued by a plaintiff but not served by their solicitor and the SCA would not necessarily be aware of these proceedings without a specific courts’ search. This differs to the previous PQ response that was issued to the Deputy in 2021.

Table 2: Claims with proceedings Served between 01/01/2017 & 30/06/2022

Question 3 - The details of these cases

The State Claims Agency does not comment on the detail of individual cases.

Question 4 - The number of claims which came from women affected

286 claims from women regarding the alleged misreading of their smear tests have been received by the State Claims Agency between 01/01/2017 and 30/06/2022.

Question 5 - The number which were from the families surviving women who died allegedly as a result of the misreading of smear tests

40 claims have been received by the State Claims Agency between 01/01/2017 and 30/06/2022 from the family members surviving women who died allegedly as a result of the misreading of smear tests.

Question 6 - The number of claims received by the CervicalCheck Tribunal

The number of claims before the CervicalCheck Tribunal is 22.

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.

Type of Mass Injury:Lists the mass action injury suffered.

Claim Received Year:Official date that the claim was received on NIMS.

Date Proceedings Served:Date that the proceedings were served.

Incident/Hazard Category:The incident/hazard category is a High level classification used to describe the cause of an incident. This is based on international recognised hazard classifications, but which has been further developed to denote hazards that can have a direct or indirect impact on a person or property. This High-level classification is a grouping together of like type hazards which are broken down in further detail in the sub-hazard type. The High-level hazards include “Clinical Care”, “Exposure to Physical Hazards”, “Exposure to Psychological Hazards”, “Exposure to Chemical Hazards”, “Exposure to Biological Hazards”, “Crash/Collision” and “Property damage/loss (non-crash collision)”.

Sub-hazard Category:Based on the Incident/Hazard Category selected, this grouping will provide a further breakdown of hazard types so that more specific detail can be recorded.