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A near miss – also known as a ‘close call’ is an event or situation that could have resulted in accident or injury, but did not, either by chance or timely intervention. Unlike incident reporting, where some harm may already have taken place, it allows systems to be strengthened before something goes wrong. An example would be a surgical procedure almost performed on the wrong patient due to a lapse in verification of patient identification, but caught at the last minute by a thorough check by a vigilant theatre nurse. Near misses are important because they have been shown to be anywhere from 100 to 300 times more common than actual adverse events.
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