European data, mainly from EU Member States, consistently show that medical errors and adverse events related to healthcare occur in 8% to 12% of hospitalisations.

For example, the UK Department of Health, in its 2000 report 'An organisation with a memory', estimates around 850,000 adverse events per year (10% of hospital admissions). Spain (in its 2005 national study on adverse effects) and France and Denmark have published impact studies with similar results.

Healthcare associated infections affect about 1 in 20 hospital patients on average each year (estimated at 4.1 million patients) with the four most common types:

Urinary tract infections (27%),

lower respiratory tract infections (24% (17%))

and blood infections (10.5%).

Multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is isolated in about 5% of all healthcare-associated infections. The UK National Audit Office estimates the cost of such infections at £1 billion pounds sterling per year.

While 23% of EU citizens claim to have been directly affected by a medical error, 18% claim to have suffered a serious medical error in a hospital and 11% were prescribed the wrong medicine. The evidence on medical errors shows that 50% to 70.2% of such harm can be prevented through extensive systematic approaches to patient safety.

Statistics show that strategies to reduce the rate of adverse events in the European Union alone will lead to the prevention of more than 750 000 harmful medical errors per year, resulting in more than 3.2 million fewer hospital days, 260 000 fewer cases of permanent disability and 95 000 fewer deaths per year.

Source: World Health Organization