Hospitals will benefit from an extra £75m announced to speed up implementation of electronic prescribing systems, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said today on the BBC Victoria Derbyshire programme.
A new review released by researchers from the Manchester, Sheffied and York universities found that 237 million errors occur ‘at some point in the medication process’ in England every year, although they point out there is ‘little evidence’ about how these mistakes lead to patient harm.
On the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Hunt said: “Between four and five people die every single day because of these errors. So, what are we doing to sort this out? We know that if you move to electronic prescribing systems, rather than paper-based systems that we still have in many hospitals, you can eliminate around half of errors.”
The Secretary said that only a quarter of UK hospitals currently have an e-prescribing system in place.
A report from the Short Life Working Group, also released today, recommended the development of a medication error and safety programme to reduce harm to patients.
The report emphasised that findings demonstrate that e-prescribing and medicines administration systems lead to ‘substantial’ reductions in errors, especially when they have been optimised after implementation.
By improving access to information and helping patients take charge of their own medication management, the health and care system can move to an environment where they play their own ‘safety advocate’, the report said.
On the BBC show, the Health Secretary added that the department would also be decriminalising dispensing errors made by pharmacists, saying that there would be no room for ‘gross negligence’. Instead, he said the measures will support the NHS in moving away from a ‘blame culture’.
