If you work in a State authority and have a moment to spare, would you be willing to answer a few questions about this report?
In line with our risk management mandate to share learning from incidents and claims with State authorities, our Clinical Risk Unit has completed a five-year review of concluded claims, managed under the Clinical Indemnity Scheme, arising from catastrophic injuries to babies in maternity services*. Catastrophic birth injuries exact a high toll physically, emotionally, and financially on both the individuals affected and their family members or caregivers.
Review of catastrophic birth injury claims
This report discusses:
- 80 catastrophic claims concluded between 2015 and 2019 arising from injuries to infants before or during labour, or up to 28 days postnatally
- 74 claims related to incidents that occurred before or during birth and
- 6 related to incidents that occurred in the neonatal period.
New Claims Review Report
The aim of this report is to present the key findings of the review, its key learnings and our advice for maternity units and frontline health and social care staff to help enhance safety in maternity services and mitigate the risk of similar claims occurring.
View report
If you require further information, please get in touch with us via stateclaims@ntma.ie.
* For the purpose of this report, a catastrophic birth injury claim, as defined by the State Claims Agency, is one where a birth injury arises that results in serious disability/permanent incapacity to a baby (for example, cerebral palsy), or where the estimated liability is over €4 million. This definition is applied to the categories of claims described, recognising, however, that there are other claims, not included in the definition, which involve catastrophic injury, ordinarily understood.
