3 March 2017
Concussion Awareness New Zealand
Email:
[FYI request #5333 email] Dear Concussion Awareness New Zealand
Official Information Act Request
Thank you for your request of 6 February 2017, asking for the following information
under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
1) Does the Corporation have any updated information/guidelines that include
Concussion/mTBI issues solely in the context of Workplace and in the Home
rather than Sports
2) Are there statistics held whereby claimants have made a claim where there
has been an initial injury/trauma to cranium (or any other part of body) and
then a subsequent claim has been made afterwards for a Concussion/mTBI
complication
3) Where does ACC obtain their Concussion-related Guidelines/Professional
advice from in order to assess Concussion-related injuries and Entitlement's
applied for by Claimants
Our response
1) Does the Corporation have any updated information/guidelines that include
Concussion/mTBI issues solely in the context of Workplace and in the Home rather
than Sports ACC does not provide any clinical guidelines concerning concussion or traumatic
brain injury (TBI). There are a number of clinical guidelines available internationally
that are supported by the World Health Organisation.
ACC does publish information on concussion and TBI which is not focussed on
sports injuries. For example, the ACC website (under ‘Making a Claim’ followed by
‘What support can I get?) has a section ‘Rehabilitation resources after a traumatic
brain injury (TBI)’ which was published in October 2016. This section contains a
number
of
resources
and
can
be
found
at
the
following
link:
http://www.acc.co.nz/making-a-claim/what-support-can-i-get/WPC139349. 2) Are there statistics held whereby claimants have made a claim where there has
been an initial injury/trauma to cranium (or any other part of body) and then a
subsequent claim has been made afterwards for a Concussion/mTBI complication Information for the last five years is provided in the attached Table One. The
information has been compiled by searching for claims with an injury diagnosis of
concussion or read code of concussion, and then filtering for instances where they
had a previous accepted claim in the preceding 30 days.
To provide context, the total number of new and accepted concussion claims in the
last five years is provided in Table Two.
Interpreting the information
Claims are recorded by the date on which the claim was registered with ACC, which
can be immediately after the injury occurred or at any later stage.
ACC does not disclose small numbers below certain values to limit the potential for
compromising individuals’ rights to privacy. Accordingly, some entries in the tables
attached only indicate that the relevant number of claims is less than four (“<=3”).
Withholding in this way is necessary to protect the privacy of identifiable 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 natural persons.
3) Where does ACC obtain their Concussion-related Guidelines/Professional advice
from in order to assess Concussion-related injuries and Entitlement's applied for by
Claimants ACC does not assess concussion related injuries. We do assess a client’s
entitlements based on the diagnosis and needs assessment provided by clinical
professionals in the health system. Each of the clinical professionals is expected to
be up to date with current practice on the diagnosis and treatment of concussion and
TBI as per their speciality. ACC staff are trained on the services available to meet the
needs of the client. The services are reviewed regularly and service development
ensures they reflect current models of care.
ACC is happy to answer your questions If you have any questions or concerns about the information provided, ACC wil
be happy to work with you to resolve these. Please address any concerns by
emailing
[email address] or in writing to
Government Services,
PO Box 242, Wel ington 6140.
If you’re unhappy with ACC’s response, you may make a complaint to the Office
of the Ombudsman. You can cal them on 0800 802 602 between 9am and 5pm
on weekdays, or write to
The Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152,
Wel ington 6143.
Yours sincerely
Government Services
Table One: Number of claimants that had a subsequent concussion claim
registered within 30 days of another claim
Initial claim injury site
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Head (Except Face)
258
235
218
225
269
Back/Spine
135
162
184
224
226
Knee
140
152
188
182
224
Face
156
179
169
137
187
Shoulder (Including Clavicle/
120
126
152
182
178
Blade)
Ankle
106
114
151
163
172
Finger/ Thumb
112
112
127
117
156
Neck/ Back of Head Vertebrae
95
126
104
134
144
Hand/ Wrist
127
101
115
134
135
Unknown
90
99
113
108
118
Hip/ Upper Leg/ Thigh
83
91
96
126
110
Upper and Lower Arm
75
77
72
90
96
Lower Leg
62
71
73
70
86
Chest
46
50
58
61
77
Foot
46
66
61
57
66
Elbow
43
36
30
27
33
Eye
24
25
24
28
29
Nose
17
20
10
14
21
Toe
28
37
33
28
21
Abdomen/ Pelvis
14
16
14
21
20
Internal Organ
15
14
13
14
14
Ear
9
22
..
..
13
Multiple Locations
5
11
<=3
<=3
7
Total**
1,680
1,782
1,834
2,001
2,202
** note that a claimant can have multiple claims on multiple injury sites, so the Total
is less than the sum of all injury sites
Table Two: Number of new and accepted concussion claims
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Concussion claims
23,745 23,980 24,564 26,111 28,076
