NHS surgery blunders 'on a daily basis'

MEDICAL blunders including surgeons operating on the wrong body parts have happened on an almost daily basis in the past five years.

- BY LUCY JOHNSTON Social Affairs Editor

Analysis of health service records from April 2020 to March this year revealed serious, avoidable medical mistakes across the NHS.

This included 852 incidents of “wrong-site” surgery, with some of these involving the wrong organ being removed.

Some of the most shocking cases included a fallopian tube being removed instead of the appendix, a surgeon amputating the wrong toe, medicine being injected into the wrong eye and the wrong vein being grafted.

The second most common “never event”, or medical blunder, was leaving foreign objects in a patient after surgery, which was recorded 468 times.

This included surgical instruments, surgical needles, gloves, clamps and cotton wool.