Vol. 531 No. 4
28 Mr. Wall asked the Minister for Health and Children if his attention has been drawn to serious concerns expressed by a leading pharmacist that serious drug errors in hospitals are not being reported because staff fear they will be disciplined; the steps planned to reduce such errors and to ensure that where they do occur, full reporting takes place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5969/01]
67 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Health and Children if his attention has been drawn to concerns expressed by the chief pharmacist of a Dublin hospital concerning the potential for wrong medication to be given to patients in hospital; and the implications that arise from fear of reporting. [5513/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 67 together.
The concerns expressed by the pharmacist arose from the outcome of a survey on the reporting of medication errors which was conducted among medical, nursing and pharmacy staff in a Dublin Hospital in June and July 2000.
In addition to identifying staff attitudes generally to the reporting of medication errors, where such errors occur, the survey sought to establish the perception of the professionals involved of the implications for them of reporting the errors. The outcome showed that fear of disciplinary action was a significant barrier to reporting incidents of medication errors.
The survey forms part of an overall project at the hospital aimed at improving reporting of errors and moving to a system based approach which seeks to learn from any mistakes and implement changes to policies and procedures with a view to further improving patient comfort and safety. In this regard, my Department provided a grant of £40,000 to the hospital, which will be used for a major project this year to improve error reporting and the hospital's medication use system. This will involve the employment of a best practice facilitator whose job will be to manage a new reporting system within the framework of a new, system-based, non-punitive policy on error reporting. The policy is at an advanced stage of drafting and follows best practice from United States hospitals which have been studied.
