Medical profession taking the lead on improving NHS standards - BMA comment on Healthcare Commission report - 11 Dec 08

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The medical profession wants to take the lead in continuing to drive up standards of care in the NHS, the BMA says today (Thursday 11 December, 2008).

Commenting on today’s (Thursday 11 December, 2008) Healthcare Commission State of Healthcare 2008 report, which applies to England and Wales, Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council at the BMA, says:

• “The overall picture in this report is of major improvements to standards of care. We applaud the efforts of NHS staff in reducing the amount of time patients have to wait, and improving the quality of the care they receive.
• “Unfortunately, the report contains the misleading suggestion that up to 600 errors occur in primary care a day. This is based on data which was mainly gathered outside the UK, and identified that medical error occurs between five and 80 times per 100,000 consultations.*
• “Any errors are regrettable but there are millions of contacts between the NHS and patients every day. It is inevitable that, in a very small proportion of these, care falls below the highest standards. Doctors want to get rid of unacceptable variations in quality, but we need to be careful to analyse and learn from the causes of low performance rather than jumping to conclusions or simply adopting a blame culture.
• “Clinical leadership and engagement are essential elements of efforts to drive up quality which is why doctors are working with the NHS to develop new quality measures, including how patients feel about the treatment they’ve received.”

*  Medical errors in primary care
The Healthcare Commission report states that “In primary care, research estimates that medical errors occur up to 80 times per 100,000 consultations (up to 600 errors a day).”

The BMA believes this is very misleading. It is based on the following 2002 paper, which looked at studies that were mainly carried out in the USA, Australia, and the Netherlands:

http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/20/3/231

The studies reported wide differences in rates of errors in primary care, varying from five to 80 per 100,000 consultations.

Papers and Summary

• More information on the State of healthcare report
• State of healthcare 2008 - Full report
• State of healthcare 2008 - Summary report
• Main HCC Press Release...
• Summary Extract - The State of Healthcare in 2008
• DH - Alan Johnson welcomes Health Regulator's annual report - 11 Dec 08

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