The table includes the numbers of patient safety incidents associated with the death of a patient that were submitted to the National Patient Safety Agency’s Reporting and Learning System each year for the period from the 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2008 broken down by type of incident.
Information about the number of patient safety incidents associated with the death prior to that date is not included because of the low number of incidents submitted to the Reporting and Learning System (RLS) and the reliability of the information available.
The total number of reported deaths in each financial year represent 0.4 per cent. of all patient safety incidents reported in that year.
Financial year (April—March) Incident type 2005 2006 2007 Access, admission, transfer, discharge (including missing patient) 111 158 135 Clinical assessment (including diagnosis, scans, tests, assessments) 109 157 156 Consent, communication, confidentiality 50 51 41 Disruptive, aggressive behaviour 12 14 18 Documentation (including records, identification) 11 10 14 Infection Control Incident 18 150 309 Implementation of care and ongoing monitoring/review 55 75 115 Infrastructure (including staffing, facilities, environment) 38 48 40 Medical device/equipment 32 33 40 Medication 37 50 54 Patient abuse (by staff/third party) 5 12 22 Patient accident 100 133 171 Self-harming behaviour 419 498 487 Treatment, procedure 237 302 385 Other 1,041 1,503 1,658 Total 2,275 3,194 3,645
Financial year (April—March) Incident type 2005 2006 2007 Deaths 2,275 3,194 3,645 All incident types 596,138 767,324 892,947 Percentage of incident types reported as deaths 0.4 0.4 0.4