Medication errors in care homes
Friday 9 October 2009
Seven out of ten elderly people living in care homes are the victims of medicine errors
The University of Surrey, in conjunction with the London School of Pharmacy and Leeds School of Pharmacy have just published a major study on the prevalence and causes of medication error in care homes. The research has found that seven out of 10 elderly people living in care homes are the victims of medicine errors. Professor Peter Buckle, who led the Surrey team, stated that ‘these results shocked the research team when they first emerged from the epidemiological data and should make us all aware of the deep, systematic flaws that exist in this rapidly enlarging sector of social and health care’.
The health ergonomics research team at Surrey, part of the Robens Centre for Public Health, also considered possible causes including poor medication records, inadequately designed medication administration systems, overworked staff, poor systematic availability of correct pharmaceutical information and a lack of training. These contributed to mistakes with prescribing, dispensing and administration that could harm residents and were indicative of wider systems failings.
Researchers examined data from 256 residents recruited from 55 care homes across England. Each resident was taking an average of eight medicines each. The research found that 178 (69.5%) residents had been subject to one or more medication errors - typically two per person. Of these, 94 residents were the victims of dispensing errors - mistakes with labelling were found on 7.3% of medicines.
A total of 100 people were subject to prescribing errors, including the wrong dose and not enough information on how the drug should be taken. Overall, 147 residents were given a medicine that required monitoring - of these, 18.4% (27) contained an error.
Fifty-seven residents suffered a total of 116 administration errors, including the wrong dose or not being given their drugs at all.
The authors of the study, that is published in the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care (part of the BMJ family of journals), concluded "People in care homes are a frail and vulnerable population at particular risk from medication errors, and it is a cause for concern that two-thirds of care home residents in this study were exposed to one or more errors."
Free download of the paper is available at: http://qshc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/5/341?etoc
Media Enquiries
Peter La, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: +44 (0)1483 689191, or Email mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk
