U.K. hospital drug deaths increase
Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 8:10:30 AM EST
LONDON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A major report released Tuesday said the number of patients dying in English and Welsh hospitals as a result of prescription blunders and side effects from drugs had increased by 500 percent over the past decade.
The survey by the Audit Commission, a watchdog body, said the causes for the sharp increase ranged from the strength of modern drugs to the increased pace of work and pressure on those in the medical profession.
The commission's report said it found more than 1,100 patients died in 2000 from medication errors and adverse effects of medication in England and Wales, up from 200 deaths in 1990 and 950 in 1999. Scotland and Northern Ireland were not included in the survey.
The Audit Commission suggested some of the deaths resulted from doctors not receiving accurate information about the patients and that occasionally illegible notes were to blame. Many of the deaths could have been avoided with additional care, it added.
The commission's attributing part of the blame to stronger medication now available was echoed by Dr. Trevor Pickersgill, of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee.
"The number of drugs is increasing, the effectiveness -- and therefore the toxicity -- of drugs is increasing, the number of people on multiple medications is increasing," Pickersgill told British Broadcasting Corp. radio, "and that increases the risk of interaction."
The Audit Commission also said more medical accidents were likely with the arrival of new doctors to work in hospitals. Fewer than 40 percent of trainee doctors are satisfied with the advice they get about medicines, it reported.
The survey said medical mistakes and adverse reactions to medication were costing the country's National Health Service about $725 million a year.
The report's statistics said one out of every 10 patients in hospitals suffers some sort of "adverse event" and half of these are preventable. One-third of these trigger an additional illness or in some cases death.
In the average hospital, it said, some 7,000 individual doses of medicine are administered every 24 hours. "This is a culture where mistakes do unfortunately happen," Pickersgill said.
-- Doesn't England have socialized healthcare? What we refer to as hillarycare? |
