Dr Minh Alexander retired consultant psychiatrist 24 July 2023
This is a post to share correspondence to the Information Commissioner about a stubborn failure by NHS Resolution to fully disclose data on personal injury claims by NHS staff during the years since the pandemic started.
NHS Resolution has been handling personal injury claims by NHS workers affected by long COVID, but claimed it could not provide data about this, because it had no specific code for long COVID.
When asked to disclose data on all claims spanning the pandemic years, under all existing codes, NHS Resolution bizarrely cherry picked and supplied data relating to only a few injury codes.
It has prevaricated and delayed in supplying the withheld information, which includes claims which fall under codes such as “breathing difficulties”, sensory loss and “brain damage”.
I have referred the matter to the ICO.
The correspondence is below. The headline figures quoted from NHSR in the appendix relates to the period 2018/19 onwards. (Pre-pandemic years were included in the request for comparison).
BY EMAIL
Information Commissioner
24 July 2023
Dear ICO,
Failure by NHS Resolution to provide information about NHS staff personal injury claims during the pandemic
I have been trying to seek out information about how long COVID has affected the NHS workforce.
This is information of substantial public interest for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the government and NHS oversight bodies have indicated that they have not been collating data on the scale of harm to NHS staff from long COVID, which seems a negligent omission.
The infection of NHS staff and resulting significant disability is a reflection on infection control processes, and the government should be recording all relevant information in order to learn from the harm and to mitigate risks.
The scale of harm is a basic starting point in evaluating matters.
The BMA has from a survey of members identified over 600 doctors suffering from the continuing effects of COVID-19 infection. As of November 2022 there were 132,900 doctors in an NHS worforce of 1.26 million (10.5%). So it is likely that there are thousands of NHS workers who have been affected by long COVID. This is also suggested if the sampling data from the ONS coronavirus infection survey is scaled up. For example, as of September 2022, ONS estimated that 3.76% healthcare workers were affected by long COVID.
Moreover, NHS staff who have suffered occupational harm from COVID infections deserve to know the full facts about the scale of harm, and any related patterns in disease. Relevant to this is a coroner’s ruling that the deaths of two NHS nurses were “industrial disease”.
NHS Resolution has been paying compensation to some COVID injured NHS staff who have made claims for personal injury.
However, NHSR informed me that it had assigned no specific COVID to such cases:
“Unfortunately, we do not have a code that would allow us to readily extract claims where the injury is due to long COVID.”
NHSR claimed that it was in consequence unable to search for data relating to these cases.
I therefore approached the matter from a different angle, and asked NHS Resolution on 6 March 2023 to provide me with data on all personal injury claims by NHS staff under all existing injury codes for a period spanning the COVID pandemic and the two years prior to the pandemic for comparison.
Inexplicably, NHS Resolution provided me with data on only some of the personal injury claims by NHS staff in the period in question.
NHSR limited its response to a small selection of its injury codes, and failed to disclose data relating to claims under the rest of the injury codes.
It offered no valid legal grounds for exemption of disclosure under FOIA with respect to the information that it had withheld.
When I challenged this, including with information from past FOI disclosures by NHS Resolution which showed that it held data relevant to the omitted injury codes, NHSR apologised on 10 May 2023, claimed that it was seeking advice from “subject matter experts” and indicated that it would provide me with a substantive response within two weeks.
Since then, NHSR has repeatedly failed to provide the missing data and despite further unreliable promises to do so:
NHSR email 30 May 2023:
“We hope to provide you a substantive response within 2 weeks”
NHSR email 19 June 2023:
“We hope to be able to provide you with a response by the end of next week”
I should point out that all this is very uncharacteristic behaviour by NHS Resolution, which is usually punctilious in responding to FOI requests.
I do not think it is reasonable wait any further, especially as all coded information is electronically accessible and there should be no reason why NHS Resolution could not have provided the requested information, in full, much sooner.
I would be grateful for the ICO’s help in accessing the missing data.
In the appendix below, I set out the injury codes for which NHSR has provided personal injury claims data, and the remaining injury codes for which NHSR has still provided no claims data.
The correspondence with NHSR, including the original FOI request on is forwarded below.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Dr Minh Alexander
Cc Helen Vernon CEO NHS Resolution
Baroness Heather Hallett UK COVID inquiry
APPENDIX
NHS Resolution has provided data on personal injury claims made NHS staff which fall under the following codes:
| Orthopaedic Injuries | 2,403 |
| Psychiatric Damage | 372 |
| Facial Injuries | 199 |
| Head Injuries | 185 |
| Injuries to Internal Organs | 96 |
| Burns | 51 |
| Damage | 50 |
| Sickness/Disease | 45 |
| Injuries affecting the senses | 33 |
| Other | 24 |
| Fatality | 15 |
| Scarring (Except Facial) | 12 |
| Unknown | # |
| Damage to Hair | # |
NHS Resolution has failed to provide data on personal injury claims by NHS staff which fall under the following codes:
Total Loss of Both Legs
Achilles Tendon Amputation
Amputation of Both Arms
Amputation of Both Feet
Amputation of one Arm
Amputation of One Foot Ankle
Arms
Asbestosis
Asthma
Back
Bladder
Blindness in one eye Bowels
Brachial Plexus Injury
Brain Damage
Breathing Difficulties
Bronchitis
Building
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Cervical
Cervical Spondylosis
Chest
Clostridium Difficile
Clothing
Colles Fracture
Crush
Damage to Teeth
Deafness
Digestive System
Dislocation
Elbow
Epicondylitis
Epilepsy
Eye Injury (not affecting sight)
Facial Disfigurements
Foot
Fracture
Fracture of Cheekbones
Fracture of Jaw
Fracture of Nose
Fracture to Finger(s)
Frozen Shoulder
Hand
Hernia
Hip Replacement
Impotence
Infertility
Injuries Involving Paralysis
Kidneys
Knee
Leg
Legionaires
Loss of Both Hands
Loss of Eye
Loss of Finger
Loss of Function in Both Hands
Loss of Function in One Hand
Loss of hearing in 1 ear
Loss of One Hand
Loss of One Leg
Loss of Sexual Function
Lumbar
Lung Cancer
Lung Disease
Mesothelioma
Minor Eye Injury
Minor Head Injury
MRSA
MSSA
Multiple Loss of Fingers
Neck
Needle Stick Injury
Other Property
Paraplegia
Partial Hearing Loss
Partial Loss
Pelvis and Hips
PTSD
Quadriplegia
Reproductive System: F Reproductive System: M
S.Aureus (PVL)
Salmonella
Scarring
Secondary Victim
Shortening of Leg
Shoulder
Sight
Skull Fracture
Smell
Soft Tissue
Soft Tissue Injury
Spleen
Sterility
Stress
Swine Flu
Taste
Tennis Elbow Syndrome
Tenosynovitis
Thoracic
Tinnitus
Toe
Total Blindness
Total Deafness
Total Loss
Trauma
Twisting Injury
Upper Limb Disorders
Vehicle (inc Bike)
Vibration White Finger
Wrist
NHS leavers during the pandemic and number of staff infected with COVID
Alexander's Excavations 