Leader: Shocking errors must never happen again

NATIONAL Health Service hospitals treat more than one million patients in Scotland every year, providing high- quality care when people are at their most vulnerable. It is a service upon which we all depend and which can make the difference between life and death.

It is because the NHS works well most of the time, particularly dealing with emergencies, that we find it so shocking when it fails.

In the case of John Aitken, whose death after suffering a severe cardiac arrest as he was being moved between wards in Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, the NHS clearly and tragically failed, a point forcefully made yesterday by a sheriff who found that the father of six might have lived had there not been a catalogue of errors by staff at the hospital.

The facts, spelled out by Sheriff Kenneth Ross, are these: although Mr Aitken was very ill, nurses failed to give him potentially life-saving oxygen as he was being moved and they did not use monitoring equipment in his final moments, despite a consultant anaesthetist leaving instructions to do so. These are errors which simply should not have happened and it is of little comfort to Mr Aitken's family that NHS Dumfries and Galloway accepts the sheriff's findings.

However, the health board should be given some credit for accepting mistakes were made, and for changing procedures in an effort to ensure this never happens again, as it must not. Health boards across Scotland must now study this case and ensure they, too, avoid the failures which led to the death of Mr Aitken.