NSW: Staff, bureaucrats blame each other for hospital mistakes
25 Jan 2009 3:42 AM
SYDNEY, Jan 25 AAP - Staff at NSW hospitals and senior health bureaucrats blame each other for mistakes, including deaths of patients, according to a four-year study.
The Sun-Herald newspaper says the statewide "safety check" found patients were at significant risk of death or injury from falls, medication errors, staffing levels, lax infection control and mistakes in diagnosis and treatment.
The paper says doctors and nurses overwhelmingly agreed that chronic understaffing and heavy reliance on inexperienced junior staff was a major risk - especially after-hours and in complex areas such as emergency and intensive care. But the area health service managers blamed adverse incidents on mistakes made by medical and nursing staff rather than problems with skill mix.
The Annual Review of Root Cause Analysis 2006 and 2007 found that most of the avoidable deaths were due to a delay in responding to a rapidly deteriorating patient.
The report found dozens of patient safety programs had been implemented since 2004 but very few had been reviewed to assess if they actually worked.
