West Suffolk Hospital recorded five 'never events'

The hospital in Bury St Edmunds said never events were "rare" and were taken "extremely seriously"

Surgeons operated on the wrong part of a patient's body and a "foreign object" was left inside another patient, a hospital has revealed.

They were two of five preventable errors - recorded as "never events", because they are so serious they should not happen - at West Suffolk Hospital.

The incidents all took place in the last five years, the hospital in Bury St Edmunds said.

It said action was always taken which aimed to prevent further never events.

The details were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Between 2009 and 2012, NHS trusts across England recorded 750 'never events'.

'One too many'

In 2010, West Suffolk Hospital recorded one case of a misplaced naso- or oro-gastric, where a feeding tube has been inserted in the wrong position.

The operation on the wrong part of the body took place in 2012.

In 2013, there were two never events - a wrong implant/prosthesis was fitted and the foreign object error.

This year, there was a failure to monitor and respond to oxygen saturation in the blood when a patient was undergoing anaesthesia.

A hospital spokeswoman said further details could not be released, to protect patient confidentiality.

The hospital said it had had an average of 335,878 patient admissions a year over the five-year period.

Jon Green, executive chief operating officer at West Suffolk Hospital, said: "We take any incidents which compromise safety extremely seriously. Although never events are rare, one is one too many.

"As such, we work closely with our clinicians to thoroughly investigate any incidents which do arise so that we can take action to prevent a recurrence in the future."