The following table provides the number 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 2006, broken down by type of incident.
The National Patient Safety Agency was set up in 2001. The Reporting and Learning System was piloted in 2002-03 but not all national health service trusts were reporting before the end of 2004. Information about the number of patient safety incidents associated with death in 2004 is not included because of the low number of incidents submitted to the Reporting and Learning System prior to that date and the unreliability of the information available.
Incident type Number/percentage Deaths 2,275 All incident types 596,138 Percentage of incident types reported as deaths 0.4 Source: National Patient Safety Agency.
Incident type Number Access, admission, transfer, discharge (including missing patient) 111 Clinical assessment (including diagnosis, scans, tests, assessments) 109 Consent, communication, confidentiality 50 Disruptive, aggressive behaviour 12 Documentation (including records, identification) 11 Infection Control Incident 18 Implementation of care and ongoing monitoring/review 55 Infrastructure (including staffing, facilities, environment) 38 Medical device/equipment 32 Medication 37 Patient abuse (by staff/third party) 5 Patient accident 100 Self-harming behaviour 419 Treatment, procedure 237 Other 1,041 Total 2,275