13 May 2021
Mr M Bell
[FYI request #15181 email]
Tēnā koe Mr M Bell
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-010430
Thank you for your email of 15 April 2021, asking for the following information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
Please provide a list of all compensation cases approved or declined for vaccine injury or adverse
reactions related to vaccines on record. Please provide the date of the decision, the amount of
compensation and the reason for being approved or declined.
Background information about treatment injuries
Before responding to your request, we would first like to provide you with some background
information about treatment injuries.
ACC has provided cover for treatment injuries since 1 July 2005. The treatment injury provisions
replaced the medical misadventure provisions of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, to bring it more
in line with the no-fault nature of the scheme.
A treatment injury is a personal injury caused as a result of seeking or receiving medical treatment from
a registered health professional. In order to fulfil the criteria for cover, the person must have suffered a
personal injury and there must be a clear causal link between the treatment and the injury, and the
injury must not be a necessary part or ordinary consequence of the treatment.
Treatment injury data
When considering treatment injury data, it is important to note that the number of claims lodged with
ACC cannot be taken as an accurate indication of the occurrence of injury during treatment or the
quality of care. This is because, among other reasons, not all occurrences of injury during treatment are
lodged with ACC.
Treatment injury (TI) data is available from 1 July 2005, when treatment injury provisions came into law.
The ACC website contains further information on treatment injury
https://www.acc.co.nz/for-
providers/treatment-safety/.
A full overview of treatment injury in public and private surgical hospitals and general practice settings is
ava
ilable at https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/provider/supporting-treatment-safety-report-2020.pdf.
Claim lodgement rates are dependent on several factors. They can be influenced by:
•
population demography i.e. the characteristics of the resident population, visitors and
referred patients
•
health status of the population treated
•
what level of facility the organisation provides i.e. tertiary versus secondary
•
familiarity of health providers or clients in recognising and/or lodging treatment injury
claims.
GOV-010430
Vaccination related claims
ACC treatment injury data captures the treatment event that resulted in the claimed injury, if a
medication was associated with the injury the medication type and name are recorded under two data
fields. In the response below the vaccination figures include claims with treatment event = vaccination
OR treatment event = injection/medication adverse reaction/medication error with the medication type
recorded as a vaccine.
Entitlement claims
Measuring the impact of an injury on a person is challenging. ACC and others use the overall cost of a
treatment injury claim as an indicator of the severity of the injury because generally more costly claims
have a more severe impact on the person injured. While not always directly related, overall cost is one
measure of severity and impact.
Another measure is comparing the number of people who only need medical treatment for their
treatment injury with the number of people who receive additional support as well as treatment. An
entitlement claim is a claim that has received additional support such as weekly compensation or social
or vocational rehabilitation for a covered injury as well as any funded medical treatment required.
Costs
There are three broad categories of costs (entitlements) a claim could receive:
•
Compensation (weekly compensation for lost earnings, lump sums and death benefits)
•
Treatment (initial hospital treatment and on-going primary and secondary treatment)
•
Rehabilitation support (physical rehabilitation and various forms of personal support).
The biggest single factor in determining the long-term costs of some injuries is the amount of personal
support needed by the client. Some treatment injury types may pertain to injuries which may be minor
and require little or no on-going support from ACC.
Data you requested
Notes about the data
• Costs are GST exclusive.
• A financial year is 1 July to 30 June.
• Payment data relating to this request are limited to services purchased directly by ACC (cost
figures exclude PHAS payments).
• The decision year is the year that the treatment injury claim was decided. This can differ from
the year the injury occurred.
• The treatment injury data provided below was extracted on 5 May 2021 and may differ if run
again on a later date.
• Figures may differ to those previously reported or supplied.
Privacy
ACC does not routinely disclose low value numbers related to claims. Accordingly, some of the values in
the tables only indicate that the number is less than 4 (denoted as <4). In other instances, values are
supressed and notated as (..) to limit the potential for particular individuals or matters specific to certain
individuals from being identified.
Withholding in this way is necessary to protect the privacy of these individuals under section 9(2)(a) of
the Act. In doing so, we have considered the public interest in making the information available and
have determined that it does not outweigh the need to protect the privacy of these persons.
Accident Compensation Corporation
Page 2 of 4
GOV-010430
Between 1 July 2005 and 30 April 2021 ACC made decisions on 3,114 vaccination claims.
Of those claims, 1,592 were accepted and 1,522 claims were declined. 1,002 claims were declined
because there was no physical injury. The other main reasons for declining these claims were 220 claims
had no causal link and 186 claims where the injury was an ordinary consequence of the treatment.
Other reasons for declining claims included claims being withdrawn or the claim lacked sufficient
information.
Table 1: Vaccination claim decisions 1 July 2005 to 30 April 2021
Number of Claims
Decision
Reason for Decline
Financial
Ordinary
Year
No Causal
Consequence
Decided
Accept
No Injury
Link
of Treatment
Other
All Decisions
2005/06
77
44
7
30
6
164
2006/07
60
49
11
15
5
140
2007/08
78
39
5
18
10
150
2008/09
75
54
8
12
5
154
2009/10
90
81
--
--
<4
201
2010/11
77
67
8
5
11
168
2011/12
99
54
<4
--
8
167
2012/13
122
61
13
5
12
213
2013/14
108
50
16
10
9
193
2014/15
122
65
19
15
4
225
2015/16
110
54
24
17
10
215
2016/17
141
74
18
18
7
258
2017/18
108
87
17
7
9
228
2018/19
119
102
22
<4
<4
248
2019/20
134
83
14
9
8
248
2020/21*
72
38
19
8
5
142
All Years
1,592
1,002
220
186
114
3,114
* 2020/21 is 1 July 2020 to 30 April 2021
Entitlement payments covering compensation and/or rehabilitation costs were paid for 63 accepted
claims. 57 of these accepted claims were paid compensation and of these, weekly compensation was
paid for 21 claims. The table below shows the number of accepted claims being paid entitlements,
compensation, and weekly compensation by the year in which they were first decided.
Table 2: Number of accepted vaccination claims receiving payments
Weekly Compensation
Financial Year
Entitlement Claims
Compensation Claims
Claims
2005/06
5
5
<4
2006/07
8
8
<4
2007/08
7
7
<4
2008/09
6
6
<4
2009/10
<4
<4
0
2010/11
0
0
0
2011/12
<4
<4
<4
2012/13
<4
<4
0
2013/14
<4
<4
0
2014/15
5
5
<4
2015/16
5
5
<4
Accident Compensation Corporation
Page 3 of 4
GOV-010430
2016/17
<4
<4
<4
Weekly Compensation
Financial Year
Entitlement Claims
Compensation Claims
Claims
2017/18
<4
<4
<4
2018/19
4
4
<4
2019/20
5
4
<4
2020/21*
4
<4
<4
Total
63
57
21
* 2020/21 is 1 July 2020 to 30 April 2021
ACC has paid a total of $2.2 million to cover accepted vaccination injury claims. Although only 4% of
accepted claims received compensation payments, compensation costs accounted for $1.3 million or
59% of payments made.
The total payments made against claims accepted in the year are shown below. Payments may have
been made in years following the decision on the claim.
Table 3: Payments made on accepted claims by year claim decided
Weekly
Treatment
Compensation
Rehabilitation
Compensation
Financial Year
Costs ($)
Costs ($)
Costs ($)
Claim Costs ($)
Costs ($)
2005/06
19,253
6,436
3,154
28,843
1,144
2006/07
33,141
193,903
11,242
238,286
188,522
2007/08
24,538
32,929
21,080
78,548
16,941
2008/09
37,768
17,080
59,498
114,346
15,476
2009/10
16,003
1,828
0
17,831
0
2010/11
14,493
0
0
14,493
0
2011/12
12,834
34,581
3,269
50,684
24,070
2012/13
20,298
14,169
0
34,467
0
2013/14
79,128
433
765
80,327
0
2014/15
39,155
692,176
11,039
742,370
32,685
2015/16
21,116
15,825
0
36,941
12,080
2016/17
25,923
65,920
125
91,968
30,539
2017/18
145,831
160,788
14,201
320,819
158,695
2018/19
18,346
38,825
190,798
247,969
36,344
2019/20
43,792
30,326
7,095
81,214
29,444
2020/21*
20,226
6,228
1,342
27,796
3,035
Total
571,844
1,311,448
323,609
2,206,901
548,976
* 2020/21 is 1 July 2020 to 30 April 2021
Contact
If you have any questions, you can email me
at [email address]. If you are not happy
with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman. Information about how
to do this is ava
ilable at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sasha Wood
Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement & Support
Accident Compensation Corporation
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