Failing NHS IT systems kill 900 patients a year
CrEAKiNG NHs computer systems and badly designed machines kill almost 900 patients a year, say experts.
Two leading professors last night warned that new equipment and software was subject to far less scrutiny than other areas of healthcare and was often introduced with no evidence of benefit to patients.
Professor Martyn Thomas of Oxford University said: ‘it’s hard to get across to people how bad systems are.’
Professor Harold Thimbleby of swansea University added: ‘if this were a drug it would be a national scandal.’
Cancer drugs, for example, are subjected to years of control trials before they can be given to patients. But new software or medical machinery needs only a CE safety mark, which the makers can obtain by submitting their own documentation.
With net-connected computers now part of everything from Mri scanners to pacemakers controlling the hearts of thousands of patients, the academics warn there is also a huge risk of targeted cyber attacks.
Professor Thomas said it would be relatively simple to remotely turn off pacemakers, increase drug doses or switch off sterilisation machines.
The two men painted the terrifying picture at Gresham College in London last night in a lecture called Computer Bugs in Hospitals: A New Killer. They believe that of the 88,000 patients killed by preventable NHs errors every year, about 1 per cent, or 880 a year, are linked to computer problems. ‘Everybody thinks computers are the
‘National scandal’
solution to the problems in the NHs,’ Professor Thimbleby said, adding that in fact many are badly designed and full of errors – and when they go wrong a nurse or a doctor usually takes the blame.
it is far too easy, for example, for nurses to type the wrong drug dose into a digital chemotherapy pump with a numeric keypad. The professor’s research showed a system of arrow keys, which require the nurse to increase the dose until it is at the right level, cuts these errors by half.
Another example involves the QrisK computer system, used by GPs to calculate heart risk. in 2016 it emerged thousands of patients had been incorrectly prescribed statins due to a ‘coding’ issue with the software, which incorrectly calculated the risk.
Professor Thomas said the WannaCry cyber attack, which last May crippled the NHs and led to the cancellation of 20,000 operations, was an example of how things could go wrong. But that crisis, which affected a third of NHs hospitals, was not targeted at the health service.
if hackers really wanted to damage the NHs, they could do far more harm, Professor Thomas warned. He added: ‘The current regulation of medical devices that contain computers does not guarantee they are safe, or secure against cyber attack.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Patient safety is our priority, and our £4.2billion investment in technology will help eliminate avoidable harm.’