Six patients each week fall victim to serious NHS blunders

Figures released from NHS England show that these ‘never event’ errors are affecting the lives of hundreds of patients, with 1,200 serious NHS blunders in the past year.

These incidents included foreign objects and instruments being left inside patients’ bodies following surgery, the wrong body parts being operated on, and mixing up organs.

The analysis also found that patients’ lives have been put in danger when feeding tubes were put into their lungs instead of their stomachs, some were given the wrong type of blood during transfusions and others were given the incorrect drugs.

Chief executive of the Patients Association, Katherine Murphy, said “It is a disgrace that such supposed ‘never’ incidents are still so prevalent.

“How are such basic, avoidable mistakes still happening? There is clearly a lack of learning in the NHS.

“It is especially unforgivable to operate on the wrong organ, and many such mistakes can never be rectified.”

A spokeswoman from NHS England said “One never event is too many and we mustn’t underestimate the effect on the patients concerned.

“To better understand the reasons why, in 2013 we commissioned a taskforce to investigate, leading to a new set of national standards being published last year specifically to support doctors, nurses and hospitals to prevent these mistakes.

“Any organisation that reports a serious incident is also expected to conduct its own investigation so that it can learn and take action to prevent similar incidents from being repeated.”

Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist team of clinical negligence lawyers have years of experience in medical negligence compensation claims, and have obtained substantial compensation for our clients. Not only do we represent clients in Yorkshire, but because of our reputation we also represent clients nationally.

If you believe that you or a relative may have been injured as a result of clinical/medical negligence, please call for free legal advice from our medical negligence solicitors on the freephone number below.

Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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