Jillian Skinner MP Member for North Shore Deputy Liberal Leader Shadow Minister for Health Shadow Minister for Science & Medical Research Shadow Minister for the Arts

Sunday 30 March 2008

54,000 INCIDENTS AT PUBLIC HOSPITALS IN JUST SIX MONTHS: REPORT JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG 

The latest report compiled by the NSW Clinical Excellence Commission has revealed that there were 53,817 clinical ‘incidents’ in the NSW health system in just six months, many of them putting patients at risk, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.

“These include serious mistakes such as operating on the wrong body part, giving patients the wrong medication, leaving instruments inside patients, patient death and babies being sent home to the wrong family,” Mrs Skinner said.

“This report must be acted upon immediately by Reba Meagher if the Iemma Government is going to make any headway in addressing the systemic problems plaguing the health system,” she said.

“And Ms Meagher must also come clean about incidents that are not included.

“This report represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to errors in the hospital system because it is mainly nurses entering these reports. 

“At the Royal North Shore Hospital Parliamentary inquiry it was estimated that only three percent of reports were made by doctors.

“Doctors and other medical staff have reported that they have not received the training to enter information about hospital mistakes, and in some cases they don’t even have access to computers to do so - so what we have is only half the story.

And whilst the report includes data about a range of incidents it provides no details of one of the key hospital performance indicators – hospital acquired infections.

• Falls – page 10 - 12,321 incidents (19 classified as severe or SAC1),
• Medication and IV Fluid Incidents – page 13 - 10,953 (four classified as SAC1),
• Clinical Management – page 15 - 7,218 incidents (182 classified as SAC1),
• General Clinical Management –  page 18 - 91 SAC1 incidents,
• Maternal and Perinatal – page 20 - 36 SAC1 incidents, 
• Wrong patient/site/procedure – page 22  - 45 SAC1 incidents,
• Suicides – page 24 - seven,
• Infection control – page 26 -no data
• Complaints – page 28 - 7,207

“When there is a mistake in the public hospital system and a patients life is put at risk, the public have a right to know.

“Reba Meagher must provide the resources and support to allow all hospital and medical staff access to the medical mistakes reporting process.

“And she has to stop hiding behind her army of spin doctors and provide a full and comprehensive report card on what is happening in our hospitals,” Mrs Skinner said.

The full report can be found at: http://www.cec.health.nsw.gov.au/pdf/07_01to06_incident_management.pdf