Safety watchdog warns of high dosage errors among children and young people

doi:10.1136/bmj.b2500

Published 18 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2500
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2500

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Safety watchdog warns of high dosage errors among children and young people

Adrian O’Dowd

¹ London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Clinicians must improve safety when treating children and youngpeople to avoid what have been high rates of dosage errors,according to the UK patient safety watchdog. The National PatientSafety Agency (NPSA) has raised concerns in a report that outlinesways to improve patient safety in this age group.

As part of its review the agency looked at incidents that occurredbetween October 2007 and September 2008. It used informationfrom the 910 089 patient safety incidents that had been reportedover a year; 60 000 of those incidents involved children.

It also studied direct feedback from children, young people,and their families, and it reviewed studies and policy documentsand evidence from doctors, nurses, and professional groups.

A key finding of the report was that there was a high rate ofdosing errors in giving drugs, particularly for children youngerthan 4. Drug incidents were the most commonly . . . [Full text of this article]

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