Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of how much medication errors have cost the NHS in each year for which information is available; and if he will make a statement.

The Department commissioned a study by the Policy Research Unit in Economic Evaluation of Health and Care Interventions on the prevalence and economic burden on medication errors in the National Health Service in England. Prevalence and Economic Burden of Medication Errors in the NHS in England was published in February 2018.

This study estimated a range of costs to the NHS depending on which costs are included in the analysis. The range is from a baseline of £98.5 million per annum. The highest cost scenario has estimated costs to the NHS of £1.6 billion.