The NHS is failing to do enough to prevent avoidable medical errors and to make health services safer for patients, a report by MPs says today.

The House of Commons Health Committee said that there had been insufficient progress towards the Government’s goal of making safety a priority across the health service.

Many patients who had suffered harm were forced to endure lengthy and distressing litigation to obtain justice and compensation while NHS organisations were encouraged to be defensive and to spend large sums on legal costs, the committee said.

Its inquiry into patient safety said that there was “significant under-reporting” of incidents of concern in primary care. A major reason was the persistent failure to eliminate the “blame culture” when errors were made.

The MPs said that staff should be encouraged to report concerns or incidents without fear, but the Department of Health “too often” gave the impression that hitting targets on waiting times, achieving financial balance and attaining Foundation Trust status were more important than patient safety.

“This has undoubtedly, in a number of well-documented cases, been a contributory factor in making services unsafe,” the report says.

According to the latest figures from the National Patient Safety Agency, 439,612 incidents were reported by health trusts in England and Wales between April and September last year.

Of these, 3,872 caused severe harm to patients and 1,915 incidents were linked to deaths.

A total of 10,000 safety alerts were also issued last year over medication given to children, including serious errors in the calculation of drug doses and health workers forgetting to give patients their medicine.

The committee said that it was appalling that the Department of Health had not implemented the NHS Redress Scheme — which aims to resolve complaints quickly and consistently without the need for court action — even though Parliament passed the necessary legislation three years ago.

And the delay in introducing technology such as barcoded wristbands, which can prevent errors, was described as “extremely alarming”.

Kevin Barron, the committee’s chairman and Labour MP for Rother Valley, said that the MPs were “saddened by the avoidable harm so many patients suffer”.

He said that the inquiry had “probably” made him a bit less confident in the NHS.

The Healthcare Commission, the former health watchdog, was also criticised for failing to detect “notorious” cases of unsafe care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, where between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in the three-year period to 2008.

Another committee member, Doug Naysmith, the Labour MP for Bristol North West, said that most patient safety incidents did not have to happen.

“It’s a question of making sure that people actually follow what we know is best practice,” he said. “Many good things are happening but they are not happening widely enough.”

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