11 serious errors a day in NHS surgery
By Daniel Bates
05th July 2009
Daily Mail
Eleven people are seriously harmed during NHS surgery every day, it emerged yesterday.
The number of major errors has risen by 28 per cent in five years, with more than 4,000 patients hurt in 2007/08.
Mistakes include objects such as scalpels and coils being left inside patients, organs being punctured, and the wrong dosage of drugs being given.
[I have always wondered what it would feel like to have a scalpel left inside me. Maybe we will find out one day.]
A total of 722 objects were left inside patients during surgery last year – one every two and a half days.
That number has soared by 13 per cent in the five years to 2007/08.
The figures were revealed just days after a damning MPs' report found that many hospitals are routinely covering up such mistakes.
The Commons health select committee warned that another hospital disaster like the one at Stafford, where up to 400 people died, could not be ruled out – because managers were putting
Whitehall targets and cost-cutting above patient safety.
Government policy 'too often' gave the impression that hitting waiting list targets, achieving financial balance and attaining elite foundation trust status were more important than patient safety.
'This has undoubtedly, in a number of well documented cases, been a contributory factor in making services unsafe,' the report said.
The MPs added that many mistakes were not reported by the NHS – raising the possibility that the recorded number of medical mishaps is just the tip of the iceberg.
The latest figures were uncovered by the Liberal Democrats in a parliamentary answer.
'Serious concerns': Liberal Democrats health spokesman Norman Lamb
Health spokesman Norman Lamb said: 'These figures raise serious concerns and call into question the Government's claim to be making patient safety a priority.
'There really is no excuse for leaving objects inside people. Far too many avoidable mistakes are still being made.
'Many doctors and nurses are under enormous amounts of pressure to meet Government targets.
'We have to ensure that patient safety isn't being compromised to satisfy the whims of Whitehall.
'If we really want to raise standards in the NHS then we need to give local people the power to hold their health services to account.'
The figures show that there have been a total of 17,921 errors during surgery over the past five years.
The number of cases every year has shot up by 28 per cent to 4,161 in 2007/08 – 11 a day.
Most of the cases involve people having organs mistakenly punctured, which can lead to haemorrhaging.
Oh come on, what is wrong with a lung punctured or a heart or kidney or liver. Just carry on. It is something we all have to accept in a civilized society. Keeps population down.
Over the last five years, the organs of 12,125 patients were punctured, with the annual figures soaring 33 per cent to 2,817 in 2007/08.
Hundreds of other surgical mistakes were reported, including not removing or inserting tubes properly, using wrongly-matched blood, forgetting to give drugs on time, and not sterilising equipment properly.
Failure to sterilise is a key method by which superbugs such as C. Diff and MRSA can spread.
There were also dozens of reports of the catch-all 'performance of inappropriate operations'.
The total uncovered by the LibDems represents only a fraction of the mistakes made in the NHS every year, as it only covers errors during operations.
Overall, there are around 250,000 mistakes causing harm to patients reported across the Health Service every year. More than 3,600 of those affected die as a result.
obama health care
Posts
