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Now you , you think that from a health point of view, lying in a hospital is probably the safest place to be, but MoreForNews and ChannelForNews Online have discovered the number of death in hospital due to medical errors have doubled in the last 2 years. Respondent to a freedom of information request that is put in by us, the National Patient Safety Agency said from 2004 to 2005, 10 people died as a result of medication errors in hospital.** the following year, resulting in 16 deaths and increase again last year, killing 21 people. Now that sounds like a small number, but health service manager told us it represents a growing volume of medical may be just cases, cases whose settlement is proving increasingly expensive.

Around 406 million pounds were spent out as payout last year to claims and on top of that, another 145 million to um, legal teams defending or fighting these claims. So, it’s a lot of money that’s not spent on the replacing hips and, and doing other vital things.

Tonight the Department of Health told MoreForNews that patient safety was a key priority for the NHAS and added, although any avoidable death is one too many, it’s important to remember that of the 12 million patients who were admitted to the NHAS hospitals last year, only 21 deaths because of medication incidents. That is 0.0002%. And they added that patient safety was a key priority in the NHAS. Well, with me in the shooting act to discuss these figures is Peter Walsh from Action Against Medical Accidents, a chair to promote better patient safety.

The NHAS have a point during 12 million patients being treated, only 21 people died from this kind of medical errors. This is * to be a* percentage of this, isn’t it?

Yes, we have to remember that in terms of the reporting of patients treated is very small numbers, but actually it’s a tragedy of enormous proportions. And the numbers giving to you today are probably just the tip of the iceberg, because it’s widely accepted that reporting of incidents are far far less than the actual incidents.

What can be done in order to get over the fact that human error is inevitable in treating patients?

There’s always been a degree of human error, but what really is disappointing is that there’s so much more the system could do to help reduce the risk of these errors happening in the first place. We want to see more urgency given to designing and system solutions. For example, you can design packaging, and uh, labeling of drugs so make it less likely the wrong drugs will be given.

And what harms of medication there’s? Is it because a doctor has prescribed the wrong drug or the wrong *? Is it usually because somebody makes a mistake in administering it?

It’s a whole range of things. It could be that someone makes a mistaking, grabbing the wrong ampoule, uh, therefore administering the wrong drug. The drug could be administered to the wrong part of the body. For example, the spine is supposed to be injected into the vein, um, or the drug could be given to the wrong patient even and thereby causing a, a massive reaction.

You do these cases all the time. Is there any simple thing that could be done that would prevent more that?

There’s no one single thing. It’s a raft of measures. Let’s say, there are designing solutions we can look at. We also need not to put the stuff on a position, um, that leads them to be in more risk of making an error. We need proper supervision for stuff, and we need proper training for stuff before they are allowed to administer certain type of drugs.

Peter, thanks for joining us tonight.

Thank you.