The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7313 p246
21 August 2004

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Adverse events statistics

A survey of hospital statistics in England has revealed that 2.2 per cent of episodes of care include a record of an adverse event. The survey, conducted by research organisation Dr Foster, showed that almost 4,000 medical or surgical misadventures were recorded each year. The researchers suggest that hospital statistics could be used to monitor adverse events if hospitals are encouraged to improve recording systems (BMJ 2004;329:369).