The burden of medical errors is one of the biggest threats to patient safety and is a significant cause of morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs globally. It is crucial to have a clear understanding of the reasons for these errors and what can be done to prevent them from occurring to ensure that healthcare delivery is of high quality and safe. This narrative review synthesizes current evidence on medical errors and patient safety while specifically concentrating on the dimension of error across various health care settings and what interventions are employed to minimise preventable harm. Literature from PubMed, Semantic Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science was retrieved from 2021 to 2026. Eligible peer-reviewed studies were identified by predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria and were synthesized in a narrative way. The review found that medication, diagnostic, surgical, communication, and documentation errors remain the most common forms of medical errors. They are driven by a combination of human, organisational and system related factors. The evidence suggests that a systems-based approach, with robust leadership, collaboration between multiple disciplines, ongoing professional learning and development, incident reporting frameworks, positive patient safety cultures, and digital health technologies are key elements of effective prevention. New innovations such as artificial intelligence, big data and large language models, and clinical decision support systems have the potential to enhance the accuracy of diagnosis, medication safety, and clinical decision making, but there are implementation, governance, ethical, and workforce readiness challenges to consider. In summary, efforts to prevent medical errors will need ongoing commitment from organisational leaders, evidence-based safety measures, and thoughtful implementation of technology. These strategies can be strengthened to help make healthcare systems safer and improve patient outcomes in a variety of clinical settings.