Hospital compensation claims (FOI)

​Request

A
How many claims for compensation have been made following incidents/treatment at the Hospital for the years 2015/2016/2017 and 2018?

B
Of those claims for compensation, how much money has been paid out for the years 2015/2016/2017 and 2018?

C
For each of those years what have been the two biggest compensation payouts and what are the details of those compensation payouts?

Response

A & B

a) A claim for compensation is classified as being a written approach to the Minister for Health and Social/Community Services, either by a legal representative acting for a patient and/or patient’s family or a litigant in person seeking to claim compensation in relation to any alleged negligent act, error or omission by any employee of the Minister or in relation to an incident which resulted in a personal injury.

b) Settlements may be made out of court, whether the claims are ‘taken to court’ or ‘may not have reached court’, or claims may be determined by the Court at trial. 

c) For the purpose of this response, claims ‘taken to court’ are interpreted as claims where an Order of Justice has been issued against the Minister for Health and Social/Community Services. 

d) Claims that ‘have not reached court’ are claims where a Letter of Claim has been received and/or allegations of negligence have been received and compensation sought.

e) Individual compensation awards for damages may have a confidentiality agreement included in the terms of settlement and the details of the claim.  Compensation awards may be global settlements which include damages, costs and disbursements. 

f) Where details of the failures of the department have been sought, it should be noted that although there may be allegations against the Department by the claimant, these may not be admitted or accepted.  

g) Outcomes of claims can include out of court settlement, denial of liability, withdrawn claim, claims that do not progress.

C
The Health & Community Services Department are unable to respond to this question as the numbers requested are too small and details of claims and compensation are personal and confidential. Disclosure control has been applied further to Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 to protect the privacy of individuals.

Article applied

Article 25      Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2)     Information is absolutely exempt information if –
(a)     it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and
(b)     its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3)     In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.