According to the Health and Disability Commissioner, hospitals need to learn from their past mistakes and stop making them again.

According to the reports of the Health Quality and Safety Commission 2009-2010, 127 people lost their lives last year, apparently due to 374 "serious and sentinel events". These serious and sentinel events are basically incidents that can lead to serious lasting disability or even death, that is not even associated to the patient's disease or underlying condition.

The commissioner is of the opinion that one should learn from their past mistakes so that they don't continue to repeat the same ones. It is unlikely that they will be absolutely error-free one day, but at least they have keep up the eternal vigilance and continually need to improvise upon themselves.

The year 2009 saw 308 serious incidents leading to 92 patient deaths. In 2008, 258 cases were reported where patients were seriously hurt while still in hospital, and there also were 76 unnecessary deaths.

The most commonly reported events through the years have been falls (34%), clinical management problems (33%) and suicides (17%).

The hospitals need to be open with the patients and try and be more honest.