Government figures have revealed that more than 300 patients are dying each month because of
medical mistakes.
Detailed figures from NHS England showed that of 683,883
cases reported during the six months from October 2012 to March this year,
1,834 patients died. A total of 3,479 suffered severe injury due to blunders
and more than 40,000 suffered impermanent injury. A further 470,000 were put at
risk but suffered no harm.
The new figures represent a 6.4% increase on the
same period the previous year, when there were 665,859 cases, including 1,593
deaths.
Peter
Walsh, chief executive of the charity Action Against Medical Accidents said:
"These figures are terrible and show four years after Stafford the NHS has
still got a long way to go in protecting its patients from error."
Meanwhile, Dr Mike Durkin, NHS England's national director of patient safety,
claimed that the chances of a patient coming to serious harm or dying while
being treated by the NHS were "tiny".
(source: Sunday Express)
