Six patients had an organ or body part removed when the plan had been to conserve it. Another 121 people were left with foreign objects inside them after surgery — among them surgical gloves, guide wires, and part of a catheter. These are among 403 "never events" recorded in the NHS over the past year, incidents so serious they should never have happened.
The data, analysed by the Press Association from NHS England figures, covers the year from April 2024 to March 2025. It reveals the equivalent of more than one never event every day. Wrong site surgery accounted for 166 incidents. Of these, 17 patients had a procedure intended for someone else, 40 were treated on the wrong side or part of the body, and eight had a procedure not part of the surgical plan. Four patients had the wrong procedure altogether. Six suffered incisions to the wrong part, and 30 had injections placed incorrectly.
“NHS recorded 403 'never events' in a year, including organs wrongly removed and surgical gloves left inside patients.”
Foreign objects left inside patients included 26 guide wires, 22 surgical instruments, 21 surgical swabs, 32 vaginal swabs, and two cases of cotton wool balls. Two patients had surgical gloves left inside them. Fifty never events involved the wrong implant or prosthesis, including four hips, six intrauterine contraceptive devices, 14 knees, and nine eye lenses. Seventeen cases involved medication given by the wrong route, with 15 instances of oral medication administered intravenously.
More than a decade ago, then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered hospitals to improve safety, describing never events as "not acceptable." Yet the numbers remain high. The ongoing frequency of such errors raises questions about patient safety protocols, as officials continue to call for improvements.