L'Express reported that last year, 34,000 medication errors were made, of which 21 incidents resulted in patient death and 27 others resulted in serious harm.
The study found that in total 5,500 patients were harmed in some way by an error in their prescription – for example by receiving the wrong medicine, the wrong dosage or not not receiving the medication when it was needed.
New figures reported in The Express was revealed following a response to a question from Labour's shadow health minister, Karin Smyth MP. It found more than 30,000 medication errors were reported last year across all NHS trusts.
In comparison, according to reports in The Guardian, nearly 6,000 people were harmed by prescribing errors in 2021, and 29 people died. In total that year, 43,452 prescribing errors were recorded in the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS).
The reported figures come despite significant technological investments aimed at replacing outdated paper-based prescribing methods. The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs has already stated that a increasing the number of trusts using ePMA systems would lead to a 30% reduction in medication errorscompared to traditional methods, as well as a similar reduction in the number of adverse drug events in patients.
By 2022, NHSX – the now-retired organization responsible for advancing digitalisation – said around half of NHS trusts were then using ePMA systems – and a further 25-30% were already funded for a commissioning in the following 12 to 18 months.
However, a 2023 BMJ survey found that despite progress towards electronic records and prescribing, three quarters of trusts in England still rely on paper notes and medication charts. Of the 172 trusts that responded to the survey, 110 said they used a mix of electronic and paper prescribing, 16 relied solely on paper medication records and just 46 said they used only an electronic system.
This hybrid approach to prescribing could exacerbate the problem and hamper efforts to successfully implement ePMAs. In 2019, the Healthcare Security Investigations Branch advised “the parallel use of paper and electronic systems should be minimized to reduce the risk of error caused by multiple sources of data entry/retrieval” after a investigation in the death of a patient where paper medication records were not transcribed into the ePMA.
The deadline for all trusts using an EPMA has been extended to 2025with the government acknowledging that “more work is needed” and blaming a lack of digital maturity and funding for missing the original 2024 target.
With the spring budget bringing a supplement £3.4bn of new investment in digitalisation of the NHSa new emphasis on electronic prescribing could be imminent.