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Rise in medication errors

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A recent National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) report has found that there has been a
“significant” rise in the amount of errors and near misses made by NHS staff when dispensing medicines.

NHS staff reported the incidents to the National Reporting and Learning Service (NRLS) whose aim it is to help providers of NHS care improve patient safety. The chief executive of the NPSA claimed that the rise in reports was an indication that NHS staff are becoming more willing to report mistakes.

The report looks at all the patient safety incidents reported in 2007. During that year, medication errors accounted for 9% of all incidents reported to the NRLS in England and Wales.

There were 86,085 reported medication errors or near misses in 2007, up from 64,678 in 2006 and 36,335 in 2005. Out of the 86,085 incidents, 100 resulted in serious harm (including 37 deaths) whilst the remaining 96% caused little or no harm. However a senior pharmacist at the NPSA said that only 1 in 10 incidents are estimated to be reported to the NRLS which means that there could have been over 860,000 medication errors altogether.

The top five medication errors are:-
1.  The wrong dose being prescribed
2.  Medicines going missing or being delayed
3.  The wrong drug being prescribed
4.  The wrong quantity of drug being prescribed
5.  Medicines being mismatched so that a patient is given another patient’s prescription.

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