Nenagh Hospital
The inspections carried out on a number of hospitals around the country with regard to medication safety, have uncovered cases of under-reporting of medication, near misses and other incidents. It also found that some hospitals do not have an up-to-date approved lists of medications in stock.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) have just published the first of these inspection reports on some seven hospitals, with regard to medication safety in such public acute establishments.
Here in Co. Tipperary, a report into Nenagh Hospital has stated: “Near misses in relation to medication-related issues were not being reported. Senior management recognised that this level of reporting was not in line with Internationally accepted norms and were aware of the need for improvement.”
This same report stated: “On the day of the announced inspection Nenagh Hospital did not have essential governance arrangements in place in relation to medication safety. The hospital did not have clear objectives, goals or plans for medication safety.”
I wonder what the ordinary person (non nursing) would make of this, or do people in general not reflect on what they nearly did, or nearly did not do. Which of these should be recorded? Any ideas about how long it takes to fill an incident form, or is there now a ‘nearly an incident form’ or a ‘not quite an incident form’??