The Scottish Patient Safety Research Network will examine the causes behind “adverse events” – incidents that result in the harm or even death of patients – such as patients being given the wrong drugs or dosages, hospital acquired infections, wrong site surgery, hospital falls, radiation errors or patient identification mistakes.

Approximately 85,000 adverse events occur each year in Scotland, at an estimated cost of £200m, 50 per cent of which are preventable. One third of the adverse events which occur to patients in health care can be accounted for by errors made with medication.

The University of Aberdeen in collaboration with Dundee and St Andrews Universities has received funding of £1.5m from the Scottish Funding Council, in addition to £1m contributed by the three universities, to enable it to establish the four year research project.

Professor Rhona Flin, head of the University of Aberdeen’s Patient Safety Research Group, said: "This new grant is designed to enhance our knowledge of what causes these adverse events to patients and what we can do to reduce them. We will be working in association with the Scottish Patient Safety Alliance which has recently been set up by the Scottish Executive to address this problem."

Professor Huw Davies, Professor of Health Care Policy and Management, and Director of the Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI), a joint institute between the Universities of St Andrews and Dundee, added: "We need to understand the organisational and professional contexts within which these unfortunate events occur so that we are better able to design safer systems."

Professor Peter Davey, Professor of Pharmacoeconomics and Director of External Relations for the Health Informatics Centre, University of Dundee said that the network would enable them to make it “easier to do the right thing”. He continued: "The NHS in Scotland has unique information resources but using these to improve patient safety presents undeniable challenges for preserving confidentiality. The Patient Safety Research Network will enable us to work with the public and professionals to build secure systems that make it easier to do the right thing."

For more information about the new Scottish Patient Safety Research Network visit: www.abdn.ac.uk/spsrn