Prescription errors in patients on an acute medical assessment unit

Errors in hospital patients’ drug prescriptions are common in a wide variety of clinical environments. This study reports a high incidence of prescribing mistakes (45%) in a busy acute medical unit in a university hospital in the UK. Prescription errors arising in a ‘front-door’ department are of particular concern because they may well be perpetuated throughout a patient’s subsequent stay in hospital. In this study, prescription errors of all degrees of seriousness were recorded, and in addition, a failure to document drug allergy was discovered in 13% of the prescription charts studied. We consider this to be a particularly important observation in view of the potential for severe allergic drug reactions. Multiple factors contribute to errors in prescribing and it is suggested that additional resources should be directed at continuous prescription training for clinical staff and this should include audit of individuals’ prescribing habits and error rates.