Patient Safety Congress: Hospitals are 'more dangerous than flying'

Journalist and broadcaster John Humphrys has opened the 2008 Patient Safety Congress in London's Docklands.

The two day event, hosted jointly by NT and HSJ, brings together some of the most influential names in health to discuss how to raise the bar on patient safety.
 
Speakers will encourage nurses think about how to reduce drug errors, measure safety and develop new strategies to help save lives. Moreover, the government is expected to announce a new patient safety campaign for the NHS.
 
Mr Humphrys said that problems with patient safety would directly affect 850,000 NHS patients each year.
 
'That to me is about one in 12 people,' he said. 'If you said to aeroplane passengers there was a one in 12 chance of something horrible happening to you before this journey ends, you would not go.
 
'But the point is that you go on aeroplanes voluntarily, you do not go into hospital voluntarily,' he added. 'It seems to me there is a crisis and we are here today to discuss that.'