Birmingham Children's Hospital apologises for medical blunders

A Birmingham hospital has apologised to the families of six patients after they suffered “never events” - major medical blunders that should never happen.

The potentially lethal mistakes recorded from May to March at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, ranged from wrong site surgery to foreign objects being left inside patients.

Two wrong site surgeries were recorded in May and December last year, whilst in January there were two incidents - a wrong implant prosthesis, and a foreign object retained inside a patient.

A further two never events were reported in March, both were again foreign objects left inside the body of children.

The NHS England website states: “Never Events are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if existing national guidance or safety recommendations had been implemented by healthcare providers.”

Hospital bosses said no patients came to any harm and that the mistakes were spotted immediately and treated. Officials are investigating each incident.