Extreme 'never event' NHS blunders such as operating on the wrong body part or giving lethal doses of painkillers double in a year

The number of hospital mistakes deemed so serious they should never have happened has almost doubled in a single year.
There were 299 ‘never’ events in 2012/13, up from 163 in 2011/12, according to the Department of Health’s own figures.
Among 25 types of  incidents are surgical instruments left in the body, operations on the wrong body part and fatal errors such as feeding tubes inserted into the lungs and patients given lethal doses of painkillers.

A list of these errors, by hospital, will be published so patients can see where the highest number occur.
NHS England – the organisation in charge of the health service – will release the data four times a year starting from next month.

There are 25 different types of ‘never events’ including surgery on the wrong body part, patients being given lethal doses of painkillers and mothers dying during caesareans.
Others include feeding tubes inserted into the lungs rather than the stomach and staff muddling up patients giving them the wrong treatment or operation.
But medical negligence lawyers believe that thousands of these mistakes occur each year but staff often try and cover them up in case patients try to sue.

NHS England could not explain why the numbers had increased so starkly and said another organisation had been responsible for collecting them in the past.
Mike Durkin, the body’s director of patient safety said: ‘NHS England intends to begin publishing more detailed data on never events on a more regular basis very soon, providing more frequent information on the numbers and kinds of never events that occur in the NHS as part of its wider commitment to transparency but also to stimulate more learning and preventative action in the NHS.
‘Every single never event is one too many and, as Don Berwick (the Government’s tsar on preventing harm) made clear in his recent report, we need to openly and publicly report and address safety problems, not so that people can lay blame inappropriately, but so that we can fully understand and therefore learn more from the safety problems that the NHS, like all healthcare systems, faces.’
One grieving relative described how nurses had mistakenly inserted a feeding tube into her mother’s lungs instead of her stomach.
Speaking anonymously, the victim said staff had also failed to carry out an x-ray to check it was in the right place.

In a recent interview with the BBC she said: ‘You feel guilty because when she [was] talking to us she kept saying she wanted to come out, and we kept saying, ‘You can’t come out, mum, until you get better,’
‘You feel angry after, because you think someone’s killed your mum. No, they probably didn’t do it on purpose but that’s how it feels. You feel that somebody’s killed her.’
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: ‘These worrying figures reveal an NHS cutting too many corners and sailing dangerously close to the wind.
‘Ministers have been repeatedly warned that too many hospitals in England do not have enough staff to provide care. Their failure to act has left wards under-staffed and nurses over-stretched. That explains why so many nurses say they have considered resigning.
‘The warning signs of an NHS under intense pressure are growing day by day and David Cameron cannot continue to ignore them. He must act to halt the job losses and ensure all hospitals in England have enough staff on the wards to provide safe care.’

This article is courtesy from the Daily Mail.