Risks to safety at hospitals revealed

Nearly 3,000 incidents at Shropshire hospitals over a six-month period put patient safety at risk and led to two deaths, new figures show.

Across the NHS in England there were 547,879 incidents between April 1 and September 30 last year - a four per cent rise on the previous six months - involving slips, trips, falls and errors with medication, treatment and procedures. There were 4,358 incidents resulting in death or severe harm.

The data is from the National Patient Safety Agency.

It reveals there were 2,212 incidents at the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals which are run by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust. Of these 1,861 (84.1 per cent) caused no harm to patients.

But 249 caused a low degree of harm, with a further 94 resulting in moderate harm and six in severe harm.

Two led to deaths.

At the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, 604 incidents were reported, of which 385 caused no harm, 156 low harm, 60 moderate harm, and three severe harm. None led to deaths.

Vicky Morris, chief nurse and director of quality and safety at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said today: "Patient safety is one of the top priorities for the trust, and we have a very positive culture for reporting incidents and near misses. This organisation is committed to working with staff and patients to continue improving the way we manage our services.

"We encourage staff to report all occasions where an error could have happened. This helps us to spot potential problems before they occur, and make impro- vements that protect the sa- fety of all patients and staff.

"In the vast majority of reported incidents there is no harm to patients or staff, as shown in the NPSA report. As an acute trust with two A&E departments, however, there are a small number of incidents where patients do unfortunately die and these are reported appropriately."

Lisa Jordan, of law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: "While it is important to maintain perspective as so many people receive excellent care, this rise in the number of incidents is clearly unacceptable and the NHS has to improve levels of patient safety as soon as possible.

"Over 4,000 of these incidents led to severe harm or death and the fact that so many people are affected by such problems is horrific."

The Department of Hea lth said it needed to put pa- tient safety "back at the heart" of the NHS.

Wales saw 29,376 incidents, a two per cent drop.

By Health Correspondent Dave Morris