“Worrying” number of medical mistakes made

Hospitals are making a “worrying” number of mistakes when making drug prescriptions, according to comments from one expert today.

Michael Summers, trustee for the Parents Association, expressed concerns over recent findings from the National Patient Safety Agency, which found that more than 40,000 errors were made in England and Wales last year by hospitals prescribing drugs. Though the errors were not serious, around 36 people died as a result, the report found.

Mr Summers told the BBC that better education for doctors and giving them less pressure would in turn reduce the number of mistakes made when prescribing drugs, adding that doctors currently have to work “under extreme conditions”.

He said: “It is very worrying really isn’t it in the 21st Century that we have so many medical mistakes being made – over 40,000 in one year. It is not just that the wrong dose of drugs is being given, it is sometimes the wrong drug altogether.”

“85 per cent of the beds in hospitals are occupied at any one time that must cause doctors a lot of problems. We have to recognise the difficulty for doctors here, but nonetheless it is inexcusable to have this number of errors … Patients lives are at risk,” he continued.

Meanwhile, around 70 trusts were given a “good” label by the report from the Healthcare Commission, while 73 were given “fair status”. The management review survey found that 18 hospital trusts in England and Wales were deemed “excellent” for their degree of medicine management, while 12 trusts were given the lowest accolade of being “weak”.

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