Drug mix-ups on NHS hospital wards have cost at least £81MILLION in just five years
DRUG mix-ups on hospital wards have cost the NHS at least £81million in five years.
They have led to 838 pay-outs being agreed by health bosses in England.
In 105 cases the patient died, with £4.7million given to grieving relatives, NHS figures reveal.
Patients are able to lodge claims against the NHS if they are either given the wrong drug by mistake or the wrong dosage.
In other cases, doctors calculated the right dose of medicine but then administered it wrongly by injecting a drug that should have been taken orally.
The most expensive of the cases settled by NHS Resolution came in neurosurgery where just 13 claims triggered compensation payments of £8.1million. Errors with medications on children’s wards were logged 25 times with pay-outs of £4.9million.
In the past financial year, hospitals recorded 24 cases where medication was given to a patient by the wrong method, something the NHS classifies as a “never event” as it should not happen.
In 15 of these cases, medication that should have been given orally was accidentally injected into the patient.
Compensation, revealed via Freedom of Information, accounted for £46.2million with legal fees adding £34.7million to that bill.
Peter Walsh, of the charity Action against Medical Accidents, said: “Human error is more likely when services are understaffed.”
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An NHS spokesperson said: “Over 1.1 billion medicines are supplied to patients across England’s communities every year.
“While serious patient safety incidents are thankfully extremely rare, it’s vital that when they do happen action is taken to improve.”