Towards a model on prevention of errors in general practice

General practitioners make mistakes and errors, just like everyone else. In order to prevent these 'incidents', a model for a Committee of Investigation of Incidents in General Practice has been developed in consultation with members of the profession. GPs can report incidents to this Committee, which will analyse the incidents and try to find ways to prevent them in the future. The Committee then informs the GP concerned of its conclusions and, if necessary, all GPs.

After interviews with 20 experts and a Delphi procedure with 20 GPs, a survey was conducted among 600 GPs.

The survey shows that 83% of the respondents think that such a Committee should be set up. It is expected that this will improve the status of general practice (69%) and that it can make a considerable contribution to the prevention of incidents in general practice (71%). An overwhelming majority said that it will report incidents (89DISCUSSION: It is to be expected that in practice psychological defence mechanisms will have a negative influence on the actual reporting by GPs.

GPs advocate the setting up of a Committee of Investigation of Incidents in General Practice.