Serious Incident Statistics

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Johanna Langheld

Dear University of Essex,

I am requesting information pertaining to all serious incident investigations involving the health, wellbeing or welfare of one or more students - a ‘serious incident’ being an adverse event, with significant harmful or potentially harmful consequences, and/or where the effectiveness of the university response is likely to have a significant impact on the health, wellbeing or welfare of a student, their family and/or the community.

The need for a serious incident report is specifically recognised in UUK’s Suicide-Safer Universities (2018) guidance.

It would be most useful, if your reply could be comprehensive. The key factor in all cases is that the University conducted a serious incident investigation. It is not limited to serious incident investigations following the death of a student, or a student suicide, or conducted after a mental health incident (such as attempted suicide, near misses, parasuicide, and non-suicidal self-injury), and whether in University owned property or not. Additionally, if you have records regarding students who were no longer registered with the University, but where you still carried out such an investigation, that information would also be of interest.
If you could provide the relevant numbers, subdivided according to any of the above and/or other categories, that would be extremely helpful.

So, for each of the academic periods 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21:
a) How many serious incident investigations has the University of Essex conducted?
b) How many serious incident reports were produced?
c) How many serious incidents involved a fatality?
d) How many serious incident reports and/or their findings has the University of Essex shared with other institutions?
e) How many serious incident reports and/or their findings have other institutions shared with you?

In the case of (d) and (e), please specify the different types of institution that were involved in the sharing e.g., other university, UUK, NHS, PHE, Mental Health Trust, OfS, DfE, etc

Yours sincerely

Johanna Langheld

Freedom Of Information Requests, University of Essex

Dear Johanna

Thank you for your enquiry dated 3rd March, received by us on the same date concerning serious incident statistics here at the University of Essex.

Your request will be handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We will, of course, endeavour to respond as soon as possible and within 20 working days (1st April 2021) but please note that due to the current circumstances there may be a delay in our response. In the event of any delay, we will, of course, keep you updated.

In the meantime if you have any questions about your request, please let me know.

Best wishes
Clare Chatfield, BA (Hons), PC.foi
Freedom of Information Team
Innovation & Technology Solutions
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
Essex
CO4 3SQ

T +44 (0)1206 872285
E [University of Essex request email]

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Freedom Of Information Requests, University of Essex

Dear Johanna

 

Thank you for your enquiry dated 3^rd March, received by us on the same
date concerning serious incident statistics here at the University of
Essex.  Your request is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act
2000.  Please see our response below.

 

I am requesting information pertaining to all serious incident
investigations involving the health, wellbeing or welfare of one or more
students -  a ‘serious incident’ being an adverse event, with significant
harmful or potentially harmful consequences, and/or where the
effectiveness of the university response is likely to have a significant
impact on the health, wellbeing or welfare of a student, their family
and/or the community.

 

The need for a serious incident report is specifically recognised in UUK’s
Suicide-Safer Universities (2018) guidance.

It would be most useful, if your reply could be comprehensive. The key
factor in all cases is that the University conducted a serious incident
investigation. It is not limited to serious incident investigations
following the death of a student, or a student suicide, or conducted after
a mental health incident (such as attempted suicide, near misses,
parasuicide, and non-suicidal self-injury), and whether in University
owned property or not. Additionally, if you have records regarding
students who were no longer registered with the University, but where you
still carried out such an investigation, that information would also be of
interest.

 

If you could provide the relevant numbers, subdivided according to any of
the above and/or other categories, that would be extremely helpful.

 

For each of the academic periods 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21:

 

a) How many serious incident investigations has the University of Essex
conducted?

2018/19 Number of Serious (Critical )incidents – 5 or fewer*

2019/20 Number of Serious (Critical )incidents - 6

20/21 up to 22^nd March 2021 Serious (Critical) incidents reported – 5 or
fewer*

 

2 Fitness to Study cases were instigated on individual students in
relation to incidents and concerning behaviour.

In 2020 1 Case review was facilitated for a serious incident involving a
student.

 

b) How many serious incident reports were produced?

18-19 – 5 or fewer*

19-20 - 6

20-21 up to 22^nd March 2021 – 5 or fewer*

 

c) How many serious incidents involved a fatality?

18-19 – 5 or fewer*

19-20 - 0

20-21 up to 22^nd March 2021 - 0

 

d) How many serious incident reports and/or their findings has the
University of Essex shared with other institutions?

We do not record this information in a way which is searchable in order to
report on. This is therefore information not held by us.

 

e) How many serious incident reports and/or their findings have other
institutions shared with you? None.

We do not record this information in a way which is searchable in order to
report on. This is therefore information not held by us.

 

Please note that we have interpreted ‘serious incidents’ to be those
events where a ‘Critical Incident Report’ was produced and that ‘critical’
meant risk to life or a serious incident with possible Police involvement.

 

*  I can confirm that the University of Essex does hold the information
requested above. The University can provide a response subject to this
caveat: where the information held is a low number of five or less, the
University has decided to provide a response of ‘five or less’ in
accordance with Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, due to
the real possibility of being able to identify individuals.  Section 40(2)
is engaged where an application for information is made by someone other
than the data subject, and the disclosure of the information would
constitute a breach of the data protection principles.

 

I hope you find this information useful but if you have any questions
about the data, please let me know.

 

Best wishes

Clare Chatfield, BA (Hons), PC.foi

Freedom of Information Team

Innovation & Technology Solutions

University of Essex

Wivenhoe Park

Colchester

Essex

CO4 3SQ

 

T +44 (0)1206 872285

E [1][University of Essex request email]

 

 

 

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