State Claims Agency reviews clinical incidents

Medicine, maternity, surgery, disability, and older persons were the most common services in our hospitals in which clinical incidents were identified in a five-year look-back by the State Claims Agency.

Maternity was the second most common service to report clinical incidents (almost 47,000) of which 405 were rated ‘extreme’, meaning they resulted either in death or permanent incapacity. Among the more common clinical incidents were post-partum haemorrhage and perineal tear.

Almost 70,000 incidents related to medicine. Eight areas were analysed in detail including emergency medicine, mental health, radiology, cardiology, respiratory, gastroenterology, neurology, and infectious diseases.