The NHS’s life-threatening mistakes

Some 424 “never events”, including patients falling out of windows and equipment being left inside bodies during surgery, were recorded by the NHS last year.

The life -threatening mistakes were named as such because they should never happen.

But they are being systematically repeated, say campaigners.

NHS data has revealed that doctors operated on the incorrect part of the body 178 times in the 12 months to April.

Surgical swabs were mislaid inside patients after operations 22 times and in two cases broken-off drill bits were also mislaid. Also among the “never events” during 2016-17 were 18 operations carried out on a patient’s wrong knee and, on there were four occasions where doctors actually cut open the wrong patient.

Last night, Vincent Hibbard, whose father died from cancer 13 years after a surgical swab was left in his bowel, told The Sunday Telegraph the NHS was “not yet serious” about stamping out failures of patient safety.

Frank Hibbard died in 2014 after doctors finally identified the calcified swab which was “the size of a large grapefruit”. Henry Bodkin