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One in three London NHS trusts saw patients affected by incidents that should never be allowed to happen in an eight month period last year, the Standard can reveal.

Twelve of London's 36 trusts reported so-called 'never events' - incidents the NHS says should always be preventable.

An Evening Standard analysis of the period from April 1 to December 31 last year showed some trusts recorded as many as 10 of the incidents.

They included patients having implements mistakenly left inside their body after surgery and wrong implants being used.

Never events at London NHS Trusts between 1 April and 31 December 2015 Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust – 10 3x misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes 2x retained foreign object post-procedure 2x wrong site surgery 1x Mis-selection of a strong potassium containing solution 1x Wrong administration of medication Barts Health NHS Trust – 9 5x misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes 3x retained foreign object post-procedure 1x overdose of insulin due to abbreviations or incorrect device Kings College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 5 3x wrong implant/prosthesis 2x retained foreign object post-procedure Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust - 4 2x retained foreign object post-procedure 1x wrong route of administration of medication 1x wrong site surgery St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust - 4 2x retained foreign object post-procedure 1x misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes 1x overdose of insulin due to abbreviations or incorrect device North West London Hospitals NHS Trust - 3 1x misplaced naso or oro gastic tubes 1x wrong site surgery 1x fall from poorly restricted windows University College London NHS Foundation Trust - 2 1x retained foreign object post procedure 1x wrong route administration of medication Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust - 1 1x retained foreign object post procedure Ealing Hospital NHS Trust - 1 1x wrong wrote administration of medication Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust - 1 1x misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes Homerton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 1 1x wrong route administration of medication Whittington Hospital NHS Trust - 1 1x misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes Victoria Care Centre, reported by North West London Collaboration of CCGs - 1 1x fall from poorly restricted windows

Other incidents included the wrong medication being administered to patients and nasal or feeding tubes being "misplaced".

Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, which looks after Guy’s Hospital, St Thomas’ Hospital and Evelina London Children’s Hospital, had the highest number of instances at 10.

A spokesman for the Trust said it was "unacceptable" that the errors had occurred was "extremely concerned" by the harm or potential harm caused to patients as a result of the never events reported.

The spokesman added: "Every never event is thoroughly investigated so that we understand the causes and learn lessons. The Trust has a clear and robust set of actions in place to prevent never events, to reduce the risk of their occurrence, and to ensure that we provide the safest possible care to all of our patients."

Barts Health NHS Trust – which covers The Royal London Hospital, Mile End Hospital, Newham University Hospital, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Whipps Cross University Hospital – had nine cases of never events within the same eight month period.

There were five instances of misplaced feeding tubes, three retained objects post-procedure and one overdose of insulin due to abbreviations or incorrect device.

A Barts Health NHS Trust spokesman said while never events occur rarely, it regarded each event as "entirely unacceptable" and has completed investigations to learn from each case.

The spokesman added: "To help prevent re-occurrence we have strengthened our surgical safety checklist, and are holding team briefings, introducing team training in line with the national safety programme as well as using whiteboards to count supplementaries used in surgical procedures.

"We have also provided additional staff training in nasogastric tube feeding whilst revising our policy to ensure safe practice."

At King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, five never events were reported with three cases of surgical placement of the wrong implant or prosthesis and two instances of items being left inside patients.

Foreign objects left inside patients following a procedure can include swabs, needles, instruments and guide wires.

A spokesman for the Trust said "even one never event is too many" and was not in line with the high standards it sets itself.

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust both recorded four never events within the eight months in 2015.

Both hospitals reported two instances of foreign objects left inside patients.

St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust reported one misplaced feeding tube and one overdose of insulin due to abbreviations or incorrect device while Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust recorded one incorrect administration route of medication and one wrong site surgery.

Seven other NHS Trusts in London also reported never events between April 1 and December 31 last year.

A further never event, a fall from a window at Victoria Care Centre in Park Royal, was also referred to NHS England by the North West London Collaboration of CCGs.

An NHS England spokeswoman said: “Although one never event is one too many, the chances of a never event happening to any one individual is extremely small.

“For example, there are around 250 never events reported in relation to surgery each year. This is in the context of 4.6 million hospital admissions that lead to surgical care every year in England and 500,000 non-caesarean births.

“This is therefore an incidence rate of around 0.005 per cent, or one never event in every 20,000 procedures.”