PATIENTS in Cumbria were subject to so called 'never events' in county hospitals last year - including one who was left with a 'foreign object' inside their body following a procedure.

A total of four avoidable medical mistakes that carried the potential to cause serious harm or even death were recorded during the 2016/17 year.

Among the recorded incidents were two reported by the trust in charge of Barrow's Furness General Hospital where one person was given the 'wrong implant or prosthesis' and another suffered 'wrong route administration of medicine'.

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust's neighbour - North Cumbria University Hospitals Trust, which runs the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, recorded one incident in which a patient was subject to 'wrong route administration of medicine' - a situation that can include oral medicine given via a drip.

The remaining resident was a patient of the Cumbria Partnership NHS Trust, which provides community health and mental health services across the county, was found to have been left with a retained foreign object following a procedure.

This can include swabs or even surgical instruments.

The cases were among 424 never events - classified as things that should never be allowed to happen - nationwide last year.

But yesterday NHS chiefs in Cumbria pledged to continue their work to maximise the safety of patients and to eliminate never events once and for all.

Dr David Walker, medical director at UHMBT, which has appointed a specialist in the science of human factors in a bid to put preventative strategies in place to halt mistakes, said: “Although never events represent a very small proportion of how many patients we care for, the impact on those involved can be devastating and that is unacceptable.

“It is essential that we are always open and honest with those involved when mistakes are made, and let them know what happened, why it happened, and what we are doing to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again."

Dr Walker added: “Every never event and serious incidents are investigated thoroughly and used as a learning opportunity to improve our services and make them safer."

A spokesman for CPFT said the patient involved in last year's never event suffered 'no harm'.

But they added: "Patient safety is our utmost priority and we regret that a never event occurred last year.

"We can confirm that no harm came to the patient on this occasion however we launched a thorough investigation into why the incident occurred in order for us to learn and improve our procedures.

"We do have robust reporting and investigation procedures to help ensure that incidents like these are not repeated."

Work to reduce the potential for never events to occur has been ongoing within the North Cumbria Hospitals Trust since last year.

Maurya Cushlow, the trust's executive director of nursing and midwifery, explained the trust was 'absolutely committed' to safe care, to carrying out a full investigation following any incident and to learning from it.

She said: "Following the never events we had in 2015/16 our staff have worked extremely hard to implement improvements in patient safety.

"A lot of progress has been made and the trust subsequently reported one never event in 2016/17.

"We recognise that any level of harm to our patients is unacceptable and continue to work hard to embed a safe learning culture in the trust and reduce harm wherever we can."

Never events across the country last year from provisional data:

:: At least two people fell from poorly restricted windows

:: At least three people had their chest or neck trapped in bedrails

:: At least 44 people were given the wrong implant/prothesis

:: At least 80 were left with a retained foreign object post procedure