Now you'd think that from a health point of view, lying in a hospital was probably the safest place to be, but More4 News and Channel4 News Online have discovered the number of deaths in hospitals due to medical errors have doubled in the last 2 years.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request that was put in by us, the National Patient Safety Agency said from 2004 to 2005, 10 people died as a result of medication errors in hospitals. Fatalities rose the following year, resulting in 16 deaths and increased again last year, killing 21 people. Now that sounds like a small number, but health service managers told us it represents a growing volume of medical negligence cases-cases whose settlement is proving increasingly expensive.

Over 406 million pounds was spent out, says paid out last year to claimants and on top of that, another 145 million to, to legal teams defending or fighting these claims. So, it's a lot of money that's not spent on replacing hips and, and doing other vital things.

Tonight the Department of Health told More4 News that patient safety was a key priority for the NHS 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 NHS hospitals last year, only 21 deaths were caused by medication incidents. That is 0.0002%. And they added that patient safety was a key priority in the NHS. Well, with me in the studio now to discuss these figures is Peter Walsh from Action Against Medical Accidents, a charity that promotes better patient safety.

The NHS have a point ,don't they, with 12 million patients being treated, only 21 people dying from this kind of medical errors. It's apparently to be a slender percentage of deaths, isn't that?
Yes, we have to remember that in terms of the proportion of patients treated, it's very small numbers, but actually it's a tragedy of enormous proportions. And the numbers given to you today are probably just the tip of the iceberg, because it's widely accepted that reporting of incidents is far far less than the actual incidents.

What can be done though to try and get over the fact that human error is inevitable when treating patients?

There'll always be a degree of human error, but what's really disappointing is that there's so much more that 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 design and system solutions. For example, you can design a packaging, and, a labeling of drugs to make it less likely that the wrong drug will be given.

Yeah, what kinds of medication error? Is it because a doctor has prescribed the wrong drug or the wrong amount or 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 mistake in grabbing the wrong ampoule, therefore administering the wrong drug. The drug could be administered to the wrong part of the body. For example, the spine as opposed to being injected into the vein, and or the drug could be given to the wrong patient even, thereby causing a, a massive reaction.

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

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

Peter Walsh, thanks for talking to us tonight.

Thank you.

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negligence case:【法】 医疗事故