SEVENTEEN patients died at Warrington and Halton hospitals in six months and a further 19 were severely hurt.

New figures from the National Patient Safety Agency show that in total 1,625 incidents were reported between October 2008 and March this year.

That is equivalent to four patients in every 100, lower than the average of 4.9.

The majority resulted in no harm to the patients but there were 17 deaths as a result of the incidents.

The most common type of incident reported was a patient accident, which accounted for 42.6 per cent of all reports.

Almost eight per cent came about after treatments or procedures in hospital, eight per cent from medication errors and nearly seven per cent were due to documentation errors.

Accidents with infrastructure, medical devices or equipment, ongoing monitoring, clinical assessments and access, admissions, transfers or discharge accounted for 18.6 per cent of the incidents.

Four per cent were due to consent, communication or confidentiality.

A further 10 per cent came under an ‘other’ category.

The Patient Safety Agency said: “Organisations that report more incidents usually have a better and more effective safety culture. You can’t learn and improve if you don’t know what the problems are.”

Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s rate of four incidents per 100 patients put it in the lowest 30 per cent of medium acute trusts in the country.

But 50 per cent of the incidents it reported were not submitted until 143 days after they occurred – they should be reported monthly.

A spokesman for the hospitals said it supported the system of publicising the number of incidents.

“Patient safety is at the heart of everything we do. But we do know at times things do not always go as we would like.

“No matter how caring and conscientious people are incidents can still happen and by encouraging staff to report safety concerns, we can identify areas for improvement and minimise the risks.”

The spokesman added that the reporting of incidents has not been consistent across the NHS.

“We are in the process of changing our system to ensure improved reporting of incidents in a consistent manner. This increased reporting may see a rise in reported numbers in future NPSA reports.”

At NHS Warrington four patients were caused serious harm in a total of 82 incidents.

Problems with treatments and procedures accounted for 22 per cent of its incidents, issues with medication for 18.3 per cent and consent, communication and confidentiality for 9.8 per cent.

Access, admission, transfer and discharge also accounted for 9.8 per cent.

NHS Warrington said they would learn from investigations to ensure mistakes were not repeated.

A spokesman added: “In order to manage risks responsibly we have a robust risk management and incident reporting policy and actively encourage all staff to report potential risks and incidents.”