Directors of nursing and staff in senior nurse manager jobs should make drug safety a priority, a senior nurse has told the Nursing Times.

Matt Griffiths, senior nurse for medicines management at the University Hospitals of Leicester Trust said that the profession needs to more to tackle problems with medication administration and control.

Citing recent initiatives on patient dignity, nutrition, infection prevention and child protection, Griffith says that despite high numbers of medication-related incidents, little was being done to raise the profile of the issue.

"There are over 100 patient deaths a year from medication related incidents which nobody is highlighting," he told The Nursing Times.

Figures from the National Patient Safety Agency have shown that between the first of April and the 30th of September 2009, there were 50,950 medication-related incidents reported by frontline healthcare staff. A survey of visitors to the Nursing Times website suggested that the main reason for nurses making mistakes in administering medical drugs was that they were interrupted during their duties.

Mr Griffiths has said that future awareness campaigns among healthcare staff should make safety measures in medication administration equally as important as hygiene and infection prevention.

"Medication management needs to be on a plateau with infection prevention," said Griffiths. "This is an area we need to put money into because in terms of patient safety it is just as important."