Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many prescribing errors have occurred in (a) NHS acute trusts, (b) GP surgeries, (c) pharmacies and (d) nursing homes in England in each month since May 2010.

The attached tables list the number of incidents described as prescribing errors reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) by month:

Table 1: Prescribing errors reported as occurring in acute/general hospitals in England April 2010 to March 2014

Table 2: Prescribing errors reported as occurring in general practitioner (GP) surgeries in England, April 2010 to March 2014

Table 3: Prescribing errors reported as occurring in community pharmacies, April 2010 to March 2014

Table 4: Prescribing errors reported as occurring in nursing homes in England, April 2010 to March 2014

These are counts of reported incidents (any unintended or unexpected incident which could have, or did, lead to harm for one or more patients receiving National Health Service-funded healthcare) and do not represent the number of incidents which actually occurred. Whilst acute hospitals routinely uploaded reported incidents to the NRLS, routine reporting from GP surgeries, care homes, and community pharmacies is less widely established.

We do not routinely collect data on all prescribing errors; however, the General Medical Council has undertaken discrete studies to assess the prevalence of prescribing error. These found a mean error rate of 8.9 errors per 100 medication orders for NHS acute trusts. Prescribing or monitoring errors in General Practice were detected for one in eight patients, involving around one in 20 of all prescription items.