Basic errors by doctors in British hospitals are killing up to 1,000 patients a month, a new study has found.  

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that almost 12,000 patients are dying needlessly in National Health Service hospitals every year because of basic errors by medical staff.  

The researchers of the study found that something went wrong with the care of 13 per cent of the patients who died in hospitals, and error only caused death in 5.2 per cent of these, equivalent to 11,859 preventable deaths in hospitals in England.  

"We found medical staff were not doing the basics well enough -- monitoring blood pressure and kidney function, for example. They were also not assessing patients holistically early enough in their admission so they didn't miss any underlying condition. And they were not checking side-effects... before prescribing drugs,' The Independent quoted Helen Hogan, who led the survey, as saying.