Woman who wrongly had part of spine removed among hundreds of NHS surgical blunders

A woman who in a mistake had a part of its spine removed is among hundreds of patients who have been victims of NHS Surgical brunders this year.

The new figures show that there have been more than 400 serious surgical errors committed on patients in the past year – including the incorrect organ removed, the poor part of the exploited body or the surgical instruments left in a patient’s body. In some cases, entire operations have been carried out on the wrong patient.

The Royal College of Surgeons has now warned that the NHS must understand what has led Increased incidents To prevent these errors from being repeated.

Among the victims is Gill, who was advised surgery On its right cervical coast after fighting with excruciating pain. But the surgeon carried out the Bad operation and ended up Removing parts of his vertebrae, leaving him permanent damage to his spinal cord.

“I woke up the next morning and I couldn’t feel my arms and legs and I just thought” Oh my God what’s wrong with me, “she said The independent.

The part -time cook has been warned by doctors that she might not be able to walk again And had trouble working and could not continue his active lifestyle, which included dance. Her movements are limited and she struggles with the function of her right hand.

“The emotions were simply horrible, because when you are told that you will never walk again, it’s very intimidating,” she added.

Thanks to disappointed lawyers Bond Turner, Gill was able to achieve a settlement for his pain and suffering and loss of approval, loss of profits, loss and future loss of profits; Costs of adaptation of future housing and household expenditure; past and future care; equipment; and rehabilitation.

According to provisional NHS data, between April 2024 and March 2025, there were 403 similar incidents called “Never Events” – serious and largely avoidable surgical errors.

The previous year, in 2023/24, there were 370 cases, while in 2022/23, there were 384. In 2021/22, 407 cases were recorded and in 2020/21, there were 364 – which means that more than 1,900 cases have been reported in the past five years.

The most common type of surgical error, making up more than 45% of “ever” events last year, was a “bad site surgery”. This includes procedures carried out on the bad patient or on the bad site, such as operating on the bad knee, eye or bad member.

Provisional data revealed that, out of the 185 incidents of “erroneous site surgery”, the surgeons operated on the bad part of the body in 46 cases. In 36 cases, the poor skin lesion was removed, while in nine cases, patients underwent surgery intended for someone else.

In just over a quarter of the incidents, a surgical instrument, a swab or part of a needle was left inside the patient.

About 50 patients received the wrong implant or the prosthesis, including the poor replacement of the hip or knee.

Other accidents included a transfusion of bad blood, drugs wrongly given and insulin overdoses.

In most hospitals, these “ever events” only occur only or twice a year, but NHS data reveal that, in the worst offended hospitals, these incidents can occur more than 10 times a year.

During the last year, there have been 10 incidents at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, 11 at University Hospital Southampton and 13 at University Hospitals Birmingham Nhs Foundation Trust. All of these trusts have been contacted for comments.

Paul Grundy, head doctor at Southampton University Hospital, said: “We take all incidents of this nature very seriously and are sorry that they occurred.

“No patient has suffered serious damage in any of these cases, but the trust is committed to providing the best standards of care and is still transparent in the declaration of errors, encouraging staff to report incidents if they occur.

“On the rare occasions where we are mistaken, we carry out an in -depth investigation, ensuring that learning is shared to help us improve the quality and safety of clinical care that we offer and to minimize the risk of recurrence.”

The Royal College of Surgeons said that hospitals must take measures to understand what has led to the increase in incidents to prevent these errors from being repeated.

A spokesperson said: “Surgical teams take patient safety very seriously, using pre-operative control lists of the World Health Organization (WHO) to help prevent errors.

“When errors occur, it is traumatic for patients and staff involved.

“NHS hospitals must carefully consider these figures and take measures to understand what has led to the increase in incidents.

“They must learn errors, in an open way, involving all the theater staff in the changes in policies and procedures that can prevent errors from being repeated.”

These incidents are recorded through a compulsory report system in NHS England and surveys are carried out by Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Over the past decade, the NHS has changed how the data is measured.

Before 2014/15, they only included incidents where a patient was directly injured. But this has been changed to include incidents likely to harm a patient – resulting in an increase in the number of cases recorded. In 2017/18, the NHS brought a minor change to the subcategories it used to ever divide events into different types of cases.

An NHS spokesperson said: “NHS staff work exceptionally hard to ensure patient safety and incidents like these are extremely rare, but when they occur, NHS trust are mandated to investigate what happened and take effective measures to learn and make improvements.”