Disparities in medication error reporting: a focus on patients with select protected characteristics

It is widely acknowledged that health disparities exist in minority populations, with ethnicity, gender, language, ability and culture emerging as critical determinants of health outcomes. At present, research is available demonstrating that patients with protected characteristics experience less favourable patient safety outcomes. However, there has been limited focus on reviewing how processes within the healthcare system contribute to this inequity of care received by minority populations. This study reviews the prevalence of incident reporting of medication errors for people with selected protected patient characteristics within an acute NHS Trust. The aim is to determine if there are unexplained variations.

This cross-sectional study was conducted across an NHS Trust group of five hospitals, serving a diverse local population. Incidents reporting errors in medication use were obtained for the 7-month period between 1 January 2021 and 31 July 2021. The χ² test was used to assess if protected patient characteristics impacted the rate of medicine-related error reporting.

Medication error reporting is not equitable between different gender, ethnic or age groups. The results of this study show that these characteristics were negatively related to the number of medication incidents reported.

This study demonstrates that further systematic support is required to reduce the variations in medicine error reporting for patients with key protected characteristics. Infrastructure to overcome known barriers to safe care in the mainstream such as language, culture, beliefs and lower levels of understanding needs further development.