€81m bill for incidents in hospitals

A hospital patient was subjected to a medical error or unexpected injury once every six minutes last year — costing the taxpayer €222,475 a day to resolve the mistakes.

Figures revealed by the HSE show 85,918 adverse medical incidents occurred in hospitals last year, costing the taxpayer €81m.

The mistakes include thousands of diagnosis, medication, child birth, and surgery problems — and are “in line” with international data suggesting one in 10 hospital patients will “experience some harm”.

Broken down on a daily basis, the figures — which include payouts for violence against patients and HSE road accidents — mean an average of €222,475 was spent per day to resolve 235 errors every 24 hours.

The rate is equivalent to one error every six minutes.

The €81m cost is €2m more than in 2010, and almost double the €47m rate of 2009.

The HSE said the rise is due in part to improved error reporting and the inclusion of new figures such as health service road traffic accidents.

However, medical unions have repeatedly claimed the increase in mistakes is linked to ongoing staff cutbacks and excessive junior doctor overtime work.

Slips, trips, and falls accounted for 27,541 (or 32%) of the total 85,918 rate, followed by violence, harassment, or abuse of patients (9,881, or 11%), medical errors (6,663, or 8%), treatment errors (6,293, or 7%), birth problems (5,607, or 7%) and “other” categories (29,963, or 35%).

The most worrying concerns were spread across all categories, with patients suffering from faulty diagnoses, incorrect treatments, wrong medications, unexplained injuries, and other factors.

They include:

* 1,555 delays in treatment/failure to treat (average of four every day);

* 2,779 incorrect medicine dosage, frequency, or missed medication incidents (eight every day);

* 4,315 physical assaults on patients (12 a day), 3,560 cases of aggressive behaviour (10 every day), and 930 verbal abuse cases (two a day);

* 3,945 problems with patient records (11 every day);

* 2,065 problems during a surgery/procedure (five every day);

* 1,436 diagnosis errors (four every day);

* 1,922 equipment/device problems (five every day);

* 2,726 cases where patients have disappeared from hospital (seven every day);

* 2,267 self-harm cases (six every day).

The HSE’s national director of quality and patient safety, Philip Crowley, said the rates are partially due to an improved error reporting system.

“Healthcare organisations with a high level of reporting of adverse events have a better patient safety profile than those that report less,” Dr Crowley said.

“There is now clear evid-ence of an enhanced culture of reporting with the HSE and the wider health service.

“International data suggests that approximately one in 10 hospital inpatients will experience some harm during their treatment and this report is in line with incident-reporting statistics internationally.”

While some improvements have taken place, with a drop in hospital infections from 844 in 2010 to 710 last year, State Claims Agency director Ciaran Breen said more work is needed.

He said examples like the new early-warning system to help identify rapidly deteriorating patients, which has resulted in a 25% drop in heart attacks, show how improvements can be made.