High drug error rates on patient transfer

摘要

NEW DATA reveal that lack of detailed medicines information was behind 4,041 medicine errors involving 3,091 medicines reconciliations carried out by pharmacists at 30 acute trusts in England last September. The data, published by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, are highlighted in this week's issue of The Journal (p57). The figures show that there was an average 1.3 errors around a drug omission or wrong dose in each medicines reconciliation. Up to half of the total errors were bad enough to have resulted in a "moderate increase in treatment with significant or non-permanent harm to the patient", the RPS said. More than 80 per cent of these cases involved medicines for long-term conditions.