More than 5,700 patients in England died or suffered serious harm over a sixth month period due to errors. According to the BBC, statistics gathered by the National Patient Safety Agency (or NSPA) indicated that 459,500 health mistakes were made last year. These figures cover incidents involving hospitals, GPs and mental health units.
Amongst the most commonly recorded mistakes were patient accidents, followed by mistakes during treatment and with medication. The figures put forward are only on a provided on a voluntary basis which unfortunately indicates that the real figure regarding the number of mistakes made may be much, much higher.
However, due to this voluntary revelation of mistakes it is very difficult to distinguish whether the number of errors has risen or fallen. Indeed, as the NSPA membership has increased from 382 trusts to 392 trusts, this will naturally lead to an increased number of errors being recorded but may not represent accurately a year on year figure in terms of errors per trust or unit.
What the figures do show is that two-thirds of the errors made result in no harm to the patient, a quarter result in low harm, 6% in moderate harm and only 1% result in death or severe harm (classed as permanent injury or disability). However, that 1%, as a result of the large number of mistakes made, still turns out to be around 5,700 number of deaths or severe accidents.
The increased transparency in the number of errors made by medical units is refreshing and long term will undoubtedly lead to a better health system and allow the NHS to pinpoint areas where mistakes are being made and reduce the volume of these errors. However in the short term it is difficult to look at the figures in those terms and the health service will have to move to make vast improvements quickly to safety standards to avoid the wrath of public opinion and appearing incompetent.
