The debate on patient safety in the hospital sector really started to gain momentum in Denmark in 1999. A prospective study was carried out in 2000. As a result of that study a project was initiated concerning the requirements for a registration system for adverse events at hospitals.

Together with previous experience on patient safety the project results led to introduction of the Act on Patient Safety, which entered into force in January 2004. The purpose of the Act is to gather, analyse and communicate knowledge of adverse events in order to reduce the number of adverse events in the Danish hospital system. The Act requires frontline personnel to report adverse events, the hospital owners to act on the reports, and the National Board of Health to communicate experience from the reports. A reporting system was established harboured in The National Board of Health

The reporting system was recently evaluated, 2½ years after the system began operation.

During 2007 a Bill will be placed before Parliament to expand the adverse event reporting system to the primary sector as well as patients and relatives.

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