NHS medics are performing surgery on the wrong body part three times a week, on average, official data suggests.

A total of 334 of what the health service dubs ‘never-events’ – mistakes so serious they should never happen –  were recorded between April 2024 and January this year.

Other examples of such catastrophic blunders include accidental organ removal, performing surgery on the wrong patient, or leaving tools like scalpels inside patients’ bodies. 

They can also include incidents like falls from poorly secured windows or prisoners taken to hospital for medical treatment making an escape. 

Compensation for never-events that leave patients maimed costs the beleaguered health service an estimated £800million in each year.

However, some NHS Trusts have recorded far more of these serious mistakes than others. 

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust has the most of any organisation in England in the latest data, with 11 such incidents.

This was followed by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust with 9.

Bumbling NHS medics are performing surgery on the wrong body part three times a week, official data suggests. Stock image

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust came joint-third with eight never-events each.

By incident type, ‘wrong site surgery’ – where medics carry out a procedure on the wrong body part, and sometimes even the wrong patient –  were the most common listed in the latest report. 

Some 151 mistakes of this nature were recorded last year, including nine where the wrong patient was operated on and 32 where medics operated on the wrong ‘side’ of the body.

Shockingly there were also two incidents in which a patient had organs removed without any medical need.

While the exact details of such cases have not been revealed in the NHS report, previous examples have seen men ‘accidentally’ circumcised and women having reproductive organs removed instead of their appendix. 

The second most common type of mistake was leaving items inside patients after surgery, with 92 such mistakes recorded in the most recent year. 

Seven of these were disposable items, like surgical gloves, while 16 were for surgical tools like scalpels and drill bits.

The most common item left behind after surgery was a vaginal swab – a medical tool used to take samples from a patient’s genitals to test for infections. 

Some of the most common type of never-events in the NHS are surgeons performing an operation on the wrong part of the body and medics leaving objects behind in patient’s bodies after surgery. This graphic shows some of the most shocking examples. Source: NHS

Patients receiving the wrong type of implant or prosthetic was the next most common never-event, with 41 such incidents.

Examples detailed in the NHS report include incorrect hip implants and, in one case, a patient got the wrong prosthetic thumb.

Patient outcomes are not recorded in the NSH report.

However, patient advocacy groups have previously said the impact these events  have on victims’ lives cannot be underestimated. 

Rachel Power, chief executive of charity The Patient’s Association, previously told this website: ‘Patients can experience serious physical and psychological effects for the rest of their lives, and that should never happen to anyone who seeks treatment from the NHS.’ 

Officials have repeatedly decried the level of never-events occurring in the NHS and called for bosses to improve patient safety. 

In 2014, then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered hospitals to drastically improve their safety record to reduce ‘not acceptable’ never events.

At the time he lamented that the NHS operates on the wrong body part once a week, and claimed that trusts were under-reporting the true scale of the problem. 

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust recorded the most of any organisation in England in the latest data with 11 such incidents

Bodies representing medical professionals have blamed NHS staffing levels and resulting pressures for why the overall number of never-events has remained stubbornly high over the past decade. 

However, a hospital trust that records a higher level never-events than others doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more dangerous. 

Larger NHS trusts carry out a higher volume of procedures per year, meaning they will almost inevitably have more never-events than smaller ones.

Additionally, a trust reporting never-events can signal a better internal safety culture, because staff are more likely to admit  incidents rather than sweeping them under the rug.

All named trusts were contacted for comment on their never-ever events data. 

A University Hospitals of Derby and Burton spokesperson said keeping patients safe was their ‘top priority’. 

‘Keeping patients safe is our top priority, and we perform around 50,000 operations and over 100,000 outpatient procedures every year – so while these never events are very rare, they should never occur, and we sincerely apologise to the patients affected,’ they said. 

‘We take never events very seriously, and in every case we undertake a robust investigation to learn from what has happened and take immediate steps to make our processes safer.’

The latest NHS report on never-events is provisional meaning more events could be added or reassessed in the future.