Tired doctors making prescription errors - UK

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 08 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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As GPs in the UK are working more hours than ever they are getting tired.

Fatigue is causing them to make more and more prescription mistakes, according to a new report from the UK Department of Health.

Illegible scripts, dosage calculation errors and confusion over drug names were all highlighted as major problems.

But the exact number of medication errors within the NHS is not known as many cases do not get reported - being too busy and fear of litigation are two of the main reasons.

Professor Saad Shakir saysthat prescribing errors are an "enormous problem", which can be prevented only when GPs get a realistic workload.

Building a Safer NHS for Patients: Improving Medication Safety is at:
www.doh.gov.uk/buildsafenhs/medicationsafety