According to the NHS, “Never Events are serious incidents that are wholly preventable as guidance or safety recommendations that provide strong systemic protective barriers are available at a national level and should have been implemented by all healthcare providers.

However, it has been reported by the Patients Association that over 30 patients per month suffer from these never events happening to them while in the care of the NHS.

The so-called “never events” recorded include the case of a man who had a whole testicle removed instead of just a cyst.
In another, a woman who went into surgery to have her appendix out actually had her fallopian tubes taken out instead.
NHS England says such events are rare, but the Patients Association said they were a “disgrace”.

Other “never events” included the wrong legs, eyes or knees being operated on and many cases of foreign objects such as scalpels being left inside patients after operations.

The Patients Association analysis also found that patients’ lives were put in danger when feeding tubes were inserted into their lungs instead of their stomachs.

Patients were given the wrong type of blood during transfusions and others were given the wrong drugs or doses of drugs.
The analysis by the Patients Association showed that there were 254 never events from April 2015 to the end of December 2015
NHS England insists that the majority of the 4.6 million hospital operations each year were safe and that these “never events” were rare – affecting one in every 20,000 procedures.

If you or a loved one has suffered as a result of poor care from a medical professional, please feel free to call us for a no obligation discussion on 0116 254 7456.