22 June 2022
Kyle Tahana
[FYI request #19473 email]
Kia ora Kyle
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-018467
Thank you for your request of 25 May 2022, asking for the following information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
I am requesting statics details relating to medical treatment claims relating to misdianose from
medical prationer resulting in permenant disability and death namly cancer misdignosis, Number of
claims accepted, lump sum payment totals and also acceptence criteria case notes that can be
reveiwed.
A treatment injury is a personal injury caused due to seeking or receiving medical treatment from, or at
the direction of, a registered health professional To fulfil the criteria for cover, the person must have suffered a personal injury, 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.
Please note that not all occurrences of injury during treatment are lodged with ACC.
The cancer-related definition used for this response includes claims where lack of treatment resulted in
the progression of a cancer Generally, ACC does not record specific information related to a misdiagnosis. However, we do collect data
for treatment omission, of which, misdiagnosis is a subset. Omission of treatment can occur due to
misdiagnosis of cancer, failure to provide appropriate treatment, or a failure to refer or follow‑up.
Identification of cancer-related claims involved a review of individual claim details and was therefore only
possible for accepted claims that have enough information on file to determine whether the injury was
cancer-related or not. Accordingly, the figures in the tables below relate to accepted claims only. This data
was extracted on 17 June 2022 and may differ if extracted again.
Table 1: Number of accepted claims by Fatality and Cancer-related Identification, for treatment injuries
relating to treatment omission accepted between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021
Fatal
Non-Fatal
Total
Cancer-related
69
175
244
Not Cancer-related
73
629
702
Total
142
804
946
ACC is not able to provide comprehensive fatality statistics
ACC data is collected on the basis of claims made. However, as not all fatalities related to treatment injuries
have claims lodged, our fatality statistics are not complete.
For more accurate fatality data, we suggest that you contact the Ministry of Health Mortality Collection
(MORT). More information on MORT is available o
n www.health.govt.nz/nz-health-statistics/national-
collections-and-surveys/collections/mortality-collection or by contacting
[email address].
GOV-018467 Page 1 of 2
ACC does not collect data on treatment injuries resulting in permanent disability
However, data is collected on serious injuries for treatment injuries relating to treatment omission. This
data is provided in Table 2 below and was extracted using treatment injury claims with the
Serious Injury
flag.
A serious injury is an injury which will likely have a significant impact on a person for the rest of their lives.
Table 2: Number of accepted claims by Serious Injury and Cancer-related Identification, for treatment
injuries relating to treatment omission accepted between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021
Serious Injury
Non-Serious Injury
Total
Cancer-related
4
240
244
Not Cancer-related
61
641
702
Total
65
881
946
You may also be interested in previously released cancer-related treatment injury claim data, which is
available at:
www.catalogue.data.govt.nz/dataset/treatment-injury-claims-for-cancer-diagnosis. Lump sum payments
Between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2021, the total lump sum payments made by ACC for cancer-related
treatment injuries relating to treatment omission were $7,585,850. For non-cancer related claims, the total
lump sum payments made by ACC were $4,968,691.
We are unable to provide case notes about specific treatment injury claims
ACC does not routinely provide details about individual claims, such as case notes, to protect our clients’
privacy. This decision has been made 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 our clients’ privacy.
However, please find attached the
Assess Claim for Cover (Treatment Injury) process document, which
provides general information about assessing a treatment injury claim for cover.
If you’re concerned about this response, please get in touch
You can email me at
[email address]. If you are not happy with this response, you can also contact the Ombudsman via
[email address] or by phoning 0800 802 602. Information about how to make a complaint
is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz. Ngā mihi
Sara Freitag
Acting Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement & Support
GOV-018467 Page 2 of 2
Document Outline
