More4 News reveals mislabelling related to patient deaths

By admin | August 21, 2009

A survey by More4 News shows a worrying number of clinical specimens sent to NHS pathology laboratories have been mislabelled.

Following an FOI request to every NHS trust in the UK, to which 120 trusts replied, it emerged that 365,608 specimens were mislabelled before they arrived at the pathology laboratories.

In addition, 11,712 samples were incorrectly labelled by pathology lab staff.

More4’s FOI investigation also revealed there were 46 recorded cases last year where mislabelling was found to have been related either to a patient death or a significant delay in patient treatment.

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