Statistics of the Medical Service
2025: Almost 100 people die due to medical errors
August 20, 2026 – 2:35 p.mReading time: 3 minutes
Forgetting a swab in the body, operating on the wrong patient: Doctors’ mistakes can have serious consequences. What patients can do in such cases.
Almost 3,100 medical treatment errors were confirmed across Germany last year. From Thursday in Berlin The annual assessment report presented by the medical service at federal and state level shows: In 2,700 cases, the errors were the cause of damage; In 97 cases they were the cause of someone’s death or contributed significantly to it. The medical service also assumed that the overall number of unreported cases was high.
The experts classified around 150 incidents from 2025 as particularly serious – in expert circles, such events are also referred to as “never events” and must be avoided at all costs. These include serious medication errors, surgical materials forgotten in the body or confusion between patients or sides of the body. In 2024 there were 134 cases of this type.
11,700 suspected treatment errors
In total, the experts examined around 11,700 suspected treatment errors nationwide, of which around a quarter or 3,098 were ultimately officially confirmed as such. According to the information, two thirds of the suspected cases related to inpatient treatment, especially in hospitals, and around a third was in the outpatient area. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 17.5 million people in Germany alone were treated as inpatients in clinics in 2024.
Almost 30 percent of the allegations in 2025 related to treatments in the field of orthopedics and trauma surgery; other specialist groups were far less represented. However, this does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the level of safety, emphasized the medical service. Accumulations of suspicious activity reports in one specialty showed that patients reacted to results that did not meet their expectations. In surgical procedures, errors are generally easier to recognize than in other areas.
| Subject area | Number of allegations |
|---|---|
| Orthopedics/trauma surgery | 3,476 |
| Internal medicine/general medicine | 1,246 |
| Women’s health/obstetrics | 1,099 |
| Dentistry | 1,043 |
| General/visceral surgery | 961 |
| Care | 776 |
| Other specialist areas | 3,134 |
Inspectors expect a high number of unreported cases
The auditors also expected a high number of unreported cases. In general, scientists assumed that two to four percent of all inpatient treatments resulted in “avoidable harm”. Applied to Germany, this would correspond to around 350,000 to 700,000 such incidents per year. Avoiding treatment errors not only prevents unnecessary suffering, but also avoids significant follow-up costs in the healthcare system.
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