In what NHS calls ‘never events’, items including swabs, blades and drill bits left in patients 291 times in England in 2021-22
A rising number of medical foreign objects, including wire cutters, scalpel blades and drill bits, have been left inside hospital patients after surgery in England, new figures reveal.
Blunders involving a “foreign object accidentally left in body during surgical and medical care” led to 291 “finished consultant episodes” in 2021-2022, official data shows.
