Adverse Reactions to Drugs Increase

Lynn Eaton, British Medical Journal 5jan02

The number of patients who die in England and Wales after errors in drug prescribing or from an adverse drug reaction is showing a marked upward trend, the Audit Commission has warned.

The commission estimated that just under 11% of patients on hospital medical wards experience an adverse event, such as being given the wrong drug or having an adverse reaction to a drug.

Such an event, although not fatal, can lead on average to an additional stay in hospital of 8.5 days, costing the NHS as much as £1.1bn ($1.5bn; 1.8bn).

"The problem is that nobody really knows the extent of the problem," said the report's author, Nick Mapstone. Only one hospital that was visited had a comprehensive system of reporting errors.

Errors included giving patients with cancer temazepam when they should have received tamoxifen; giving a contraceptive steroid instead of an antipsychotic injection; and prescribing an anticancer medicine at 1000 times the correct dose. The commission estimated that nearly half these events were preventable.

A Spoonful of Sugar is available from Audit Commission Publications, PO Box 99, Wetherby LS23 7JA.