“Never events”that’s what they call things so serious that they should never happens – but in National Health Service in England was 407 of them in a year.
Never Events are “serious events that are largely preventable. patient safety incidents that should No occur if health care providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations”.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, there were nearly eight of these events every week – up from seven per week seen in the previous year, according to data analyzed by PA news agency.
Among 407 events there were 98 cases of a foreign object that is left inside patient on mistake – vaginal swabs were left in patients 32 times and surgical swabs were left 21 times.
Another items couple included of cutters, part of a scalpel blade and a bolt from surgical forceps.
There were three occasions when of the drill was left inside patient.
One woman had ovaries removed on mistake
There were also 171 cases. of an operation is being done on in wrong body parts – one the woman had ovaries removed on mistake, six patients were injected with wrong eye.
wrong hip implant was done 12 times wrong the knee implant was done 11 times and the patients were connected to air instead of oxygen 13 times.
Seven people got wrong blood type in transfusion and one patient they had breast surgery for which they did not consent.
An additional 29 cases fall under the category of “serious incidents” and are under investigation, so they can be reclassified as “never events”.
“Serious physical and psychological impact on Patients”
The University of Manchester’s NHS Foundation Trust reported 11 errors; Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and University Hospitals Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust reported 10; Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Worcestershire Emergency Hospitals NHS Trust reported nine.
An NHS spokesman said: “While these events are extremely rare and NHS staff work hard In order to ensure safe patient care, it is important that events reported and learned from them so that they can be prevented in in future.”
Department of A health and welfare spokesman said: “The patient safety is the top priority for in government and these unfortunates events – although very rare – can have serious physical and psychological consequences on Patients.
“We are implementing an NHS patient safety strategy that designed to support personnel to ensure safe care and learn lessons.
“There is record numbers of nurses, doctors and general staff working in NHS and we have set out our COVID backlog plan supported by record investments”.
