Stephen Green, head of risk management at the MDU, said it was difficult to obtain information on hospital drug errors since data was not published. Gillian Cavell, associate director of pharmacy for clinical services at King's College Hospital in London, said many health workers were reluctant to report errors because of fears they would be disciplined. The hospital introduced a policy of anonymous reporting in 1994 so that it could gather more information about trends in medication errors. Ms Cavell says this may help to reduce future mistakes. Problems identified include mix-ups over the packaging of a drug.
Some packaging is very similar for very different types of drugs.
Some drugs have very similar names. The hospital publishes information for staff so they can avoid similar errors and also passes information to drug manufacturers - although it can be a long process trying to get packaging changed. Guarded Even with anonymous reporting, however, information is poor on medication errors. Stephen Green said drug errors were very small in relation to the number of prescriptions signed per day by GPs. There were only 200 settled claims over a six-year period he said, when GPs sign on average 50 prescriptions a day.