Jeremy Hunt on a new program to reduce medication errors at the NHS
Channel: Patient Safety Movement
Date: 2018-03-16

Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt announces groundbreaking new measures to improve patient safety in the National Health Service (NHS) during his keynote speech on Day One of the Summit. 

The Secretary took action in response to a scathing report published on Friday, February 23, 2018, which shows the shocking toll that medication errors take on patients and the NHS system. The research – some of the first of its kind in the world– shows that  errors ranging from delivering a prescription an hour late to a patient being given the wrong medication, may cause approximately 1,700 deaths and are a contributing factor in 22,000 more. The NHS estimates its losses at £1.6 billion. 

 As a result, Secretary Hunt set out to reduce patient harm and improve safety. These measures include: 
•        Creating new systems linking prescribing data in primary care to hospital admissions 
•        Evaluate prosecutorial response only should a pharmacist make an accidental medication errors due to gross negligence or malice
•        Accelerating the introduction of electronic-prescribing systems across more NHS hospitals this year.