Researchers at the University of London have found that around 13 per cent of prescriptions issued to children being treated in hospital could contain an error.

BBC News reports that a ‘snapshot’ study of 3,000 prescriptions issued to children found 13 per cent had an error – and one-fifth of prescriptions issued to children in the same hospitals between 2004 and 2005 were administered incorrectly.

The team observed nurses administering drugs to children on 11 wards at five London hospitals over a two-week period.

The researchers found that most of the errors could be categorised as ‘harmless’ – but on five occasions they were found to be potentially fatal and one of the researchers had to intervene to prevent the prescription being administered.

Out of 1,554 doses of medicine given to 265 children, the team detected 429 errors, giving an average error rate of 19 per cent.

When they examined a chart of prescriptions given to 444 children treated at the hospital during the two-week study period, the researchers found and corrected 13 per cent of the 3,000 prescriptions. Most of the prescriptions were found to be incomplete – but one-third of the mistakes were dosing errors.

The authors of the study say that, although the data related to five hospitals in London, they believe similar error rates might be found across the UK – and the findings would still stand today, five years after the study was carried out.

Lead researcher Professor Ian Wong said:

‘It is highly unlikely that the situation has changed since our study was done. That is because prescribing for children is very difficult.’

Experts say most drug formulations are intended for adult patients and estimating the correct dosage for children is left to the individual doctor treating each patient. Many licensed drugs have not been subjected to trials for child patients – Prof Wong said that it was ‘important’ to find ways of minimising prescribing errors among children in hospital.

A spokesperson from The National Patient Safety Association told the BBC that patient safety among children in hospital had recently been investigated by the association, which had identified ‘action points’ for NHS organisations – including ‘reviewing local standard operating procedures’ for managing medicines.

The study is published in the journal Archives of Diseases in Childhood.

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