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The number of major errors affecting patients at district health boards may be even higher than stated in the first official national tally, officials revealed today.
The Government-appointed Quality Improvement Committee's first count of "sentinel and serious events" - obtained by the Herald yesterday and officially released today - reports there were 182 preventable events in the last financial year.
But committee member Dr Mary Seddon, the clinical director of the Counties Manukau board's quality improvement unit, said following the release that there were more preventable incidents than had been included in the report.
"A number of sentinel and serious events are discussed at mortality and morbidity peer review meetings. That's done under privilege at our hospital and we haven't included those at this stage."
Health boards also provided a 1cm-thick stack of documents reporting major errors incidents affecting patients including a number of deaths, back, in some cases, to 2003.
