This study was performed to investigate the possible differences between prescribed medicine, as entered in the hospital record, and the medicine dispensed to the patients according to the nurse's dispensing records (NDR's) in two clinical departments at a Copenhagen University Hospital. Discrepancies were defined as either dosage differences or drugs only present in one file, and were divided into major and minor discrepancies, according to clinical significance. In the first department, discrepancies were found in 61.4% of the records, and major discrepancies were found in 35.1%. In the second department, discrepancies were found in 70.5% of the cases, and major discrepancies in 42.5%. No correlation was found between the number of drugs per patient and the number of discrepancies. A significant difference exists between what is prescribed, and what is dispensed. This can have clinical as well as legal consequences.