ACC is focused on reducing the incidence and severity of treatment injuries in New Zealand. That’s why we are investing $45 million in initiatives over the next five years working with the health sector.
Along side this we have released national figures about claims for treatment injuries (cases where patients are unintentionally harmed during medical treatment) in New Zealand public hospitals. Information about private hospitals and other settings will be provided at a later date.
The report is part of a sector-wide programme to support improvements in patient safety, reduce patient harm and reduce treatment injuries. The information helps ACC and our partners understand where and why these injuries occur so we can work to prevent them happening in future. Publishing the information is intended to support the health sector identify areas of improvement – it’s not about blaming; it’s about prevention.
This is the first time ACC has compiled treatment injury claims information in a single document. It is important to note, that direct comparisons between DHBs are invalid. This is because each hospital has different mixtures of patients, and delivers different procedures.