Hospital blunders increasing and causing more deaths
There has been a 60% increase in patient deaths caused by hospital blunders over the last 24 months. Official records show that 3,645 died as a result of outbreaks of infections, botched operations and other mistakes in 2007/08. That was up from 2,275 two years before. The true position may be considerably worse however since many hospitals still do not record all of the 'patient safety incidents. Experts believe that quality of NHS care has suffered as doctors and nurses come under pressure to meet Government waiting time targets. Deaths included botched operations, scans read wrongly or patients incorrectly diagnosed, wrongly-administered drugs, and abuse infection control incidents related to hospital superbugs, 14 people died due to problems with documentation and records!
'These statistics are stark and the trend is shocking,' said LibDem health spokesman Norman Lamb. 'There needs to be a change of culture at the heart of the NHS. We have got far too many targets and there is a real risk that, although they are very effective at addressing a specific issue, they mean trusts do not see safety as a priority.'
Last year MPs on the House of Commons Health Committee were told that one in 10 people admitted to hospital suffers some kind of "harm" because of the treatment they receive. Blunders include carrying out the wrong operation on patients, administering the wrong drugs, leaving instruments inside patients after operations and failing to put up bars to stop patients falling out of bed.
A Department of Health spokesperson said that the mistakes were unfortunate.
We have called for a root and branch review of the NHS including how targets are given higher import than patient care. How much longer must we wait?
NHS failing on safe care
11 December 2008
Sir Ian Kennedy the head of the Healthcare Commission has said in his annual report that The NHS in England and Wales is failing to ensure patient care is "as safe as it reasonably could be". He warned there was a "black hole" of information on the quality and safety of general practice care. Information on things such as missed diagnoses or late diagnoses won't show up in anyone's register of incidents because there isn't an incident, just a black hole.
Sir Ian said "There are a small number of trusts trapped at a level of performance that is unacceptably poor. "There's a great deal to do before we can be confident that the care that patients receive is as safe as it reasonably could be." He recommended that a culture where mistakes could be reported and learned from should be "internalised in the DNA" of NHS trust boards.
The commission, in its annual report, said research into general practice safety suggested incidents were far more common than actual data showed. It highlighted 22 "recidivist" trusts, around 5% of the total, which continue to perform poorly.
The British Medical Association said the commission's criticisms were out of proportion. Their spokesperson said "Unfortunately, the report contains the misleading suggestion that up to 600 errors occur in primary care a day."
This is a disturbing report by the head of the Healthcare Commission and made more worrying by the denials of those in the NHS that he is right.
March 2010
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