5 October 2023
AS Van Wey
[FYI request #20882 email]
Kia ora
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-027791
Thank you for your email of 15 September 2023, asking for the following information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
I seek inforamton for each calendar year from 1 Jan 2016 to present.This request is subdivided now
into two categories. Category (1) - Treatment Injury Claims related to Health NZ Waikato (formerly Waikato DHB) and
their contracted service providers (e.g., Pathlab, Hamilton Radiology, Midland MRI, Midland PET-CT,
etc.). Category (2) - Treatment Injury Claims related to Health NZ (all NZ public hospitals except Waikato)
and their contracted service providers (lab serv ices, radiology services, etc.) For each of the two categories, there are four subcategories. Subcategory (1): Treatment injury claims related to cancer. Subcategory (2): Consequential injury claim related to cancer. Subcategory (3): Treatment injury (TI) claims not related to cancer. Subcategory (4): Consequential injury (CI) claims not related to cancer. Request. For each of the combinations of Category and Subcategory, I request: (i) The total number of claims lodged with ACC; and (ii) The total number of claims accepted by ACC; and (iii) The total number of claims declined by ACC.
Data we cannot provide
ACC does not capture cancer-related treatment injury data separately As noted in our previous responses, cancer-related treatment injury claims between 1 July 2016 and
30 June 2021 were manually extracted and reviewed by ACC’s Clinical Services team in 2021. We have
provided this data to you (in previous responses GOV-022857 and GOV-021317), which is the only data that
we have readily available.
Identifying more recent cancer-related claims would require substantial collation and research, as we
would have to do a manual clinical review of all new treatment injury claims to determine whether they
were cancer-related. This also applies to determining if claims are not cancer related. As such, we are
refusing to provide the claims data requested for 30 June 2021 onwards. This decision has been made
under section 18(f) of the Act.
We are unable to determine if injuries are consequential without a manual review of all claims
There is no indicator on claims that they are ‘consequential injuries’ for a previously covered injury. As
such, they are not distinguishable from other injury claims. Therefore, we are refusing to provide this data
as it would require substantial collation and research to extract. This decision has been made under section
18(f) of the Act.
Where we’ve refused to provide data under section 18(f), we considered extending our timeframe to
respond and charging (as allowed under the Act). However, it was determined that the resources required
to extract the data would unreasonably interfere with the everyday functions of the team(s) involved.
GOV-027791 Page 1 of 2
We are unable to provide a count of claims lodged
Some relevant claim information is not recorded in the system until a cover decision (accepted or declined)
is made. Therefore, we are unable to provide data on the claims where the cover decision is still pending.
Treatment Injury data we can provide
The table below provides a count of all treatment injury claims for the Waikato DHB region and rest of New
Zealand where a cover decision has been made. The data was extracted on 28 September 2023 and may
differ if extracted again at a later date.
Number of treatment injury claims decided between 1 January 2016 and 23 September 2023 by region,
cover decision and year
Te Whatu Ora – Waikato Region
Other Te Whatu Ora regions
Decision Year
Accepted
Declined
Accepted
Declined
Total
2016
974
473
8,435
4,767
14,649
2017
1,055
586
8,746
5,827
16,214
2018
1,136
597
9,069
5,992
16,794
2019
1,298
497
9,821
4,930
16,546
2020
1,298
524
9,264
4,100
15,186
2021
1,133
498
10,952
4,677
17,260
2022
1,039
500
12,347
5,697
19,583
2023*
912
311
8,740
3,120
13,083
Total
8,845
3,986
77,374
39,110
129,315
*2023 is a partial year, to 23 September 2023
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public
ACC may release a copy of this response on ACC’s website. All requester data, including your name and
contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released response will be made available
www.acc.co.nz/resources/#/category/12. If you have any questions 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
GOV-027791 Page 2 of 2
Document Outline
