Around 22 per cent of medical mistakes that lead to a serious reaction or even death go unreported in the UK. As it is, there are 974,000 medical mishaps every year that get recorded, a report to Britain’s parliament has revealed.
According to figures released by the government this week, there are:
- 974,000 recorded ‘accidents’ every year by doctors and hospitals in the UK*
- 300,000 hospital-acquired infections every year in UK hospitals
- 250,000 serious adverse reactions to a pharmaceutical drug reported every year in the UK**
* This is a conservative estimate, and government officials accept the figure is more likely to be 1,190,000
** This is a very conservative estimate, and is based only on reported reactions. A truer figure is believed to be closer to 1,200,000 every year, according to officials.
This means that up to 2,690,000 people could be harmed by medical mishaps every year, which represents around 4.5 per cent of the entire population. In the USA, where medicine is even more aggressive, the problem could be affecting up to 13,450,000 people every year.
It’s a recognized fact that there is a massive under-reporting of mistakes – usually because of fears of litigation – but government officials were shocked to hear that nobody knows how many of the reported blunders end in the death of the patient. Only 1 in 4 hospitals ‘owns up’ to the patient when something goes wrong; the rest blame it on the disease itself, while just 1 in 25 drug reactions is ever reported.
As it is, 1 in 10 people admitted to a hospital in Britain every year will suffer a mishap or accident that will harm him, said Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts committee, which was presented with the shocking figures this week. And this is based on the known, reported accidents.
“These figures would be terrifying enough without our learning that there is undoubtedly substantial under-reporting of serious incidents and deaths. To top it all, the NHS simply has no idea how many people die each year from patient safety incidents,” said Mr Leigh.
Worse, Mr Leigh and his committee members have discovered that the situation is not getting any better. Doctors and hospital staff are not learning from the mistakes, but are merely repeating them every year. Guidelines are being consistently ignored, and safety recommendations are not being implemented.
(Sources: British Medical Journal, 2006; 333: 59; Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Report: A Safer Place for Patients: Learning to Improve Patient Safety).