Incidence of tube misplacements
  • Difficult to determine due to limited number of studies in this area
    •  
  • Has been variously reported as being between 1.3% and 50% (1)
    •  
  • The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) reported 11 known deaths and
  • 1 case of serious harm due to misplaced NG feeding tubes over a two year
  • period (2003-2005) (2)
    •  
  • Led to the issue of a safety alert in 2005 on how to ensure feeding tubes
  • are placed correctly (2)
    •  
  • Since the release of the alert, there have been a further 79 reported cases
  • of feeding through misplaced nasogastric tubes (3) 
    •  
     
    21 of these are thought to have directly contributedto the death of a patient
    1. Ellett ML. Online J Knowl Synth Nurs 1997;4:5
    2. National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA). Patient Safety Alert 05
    3. Fayaz A. BMJ Careers;doi: - Click here for detail