Patients leaving hospital 'with surgical instruments inside them'

Over the last three years, the Health Service has paid £4.3 million over a series of claims by patients that doctors have left foreign bodies under their skin.

The list of lost implements includes swabs, a catheter, a metal clip and a contraceptive coil, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

There were a total of 283 claims against the NHS in the last three years - nearly two every week. And that figure is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg as there could be hundreds of other people who will never find out about their doctor's mishap.

Studies have revealed surgical instruments are more likely to be left in a patient's body in "stressful situations" such as emergency operations. Tools were also more likely to be left behind if the patient was overweight.

One victim of medical negligence was pensioner Victor Hutchinson, who spent three months with a two-inch scalpel blade in his chest after a heart operation.

The 76-year-old father-of-five was admitted to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth for a heart bypass in September 2003.

During surgery it was noticed the blade was missing, but after an hour-long search, surgeons assumed it had been thrown out with the clinical waste.

Mr Hutchinson was later given a precautionary X-ray at the hospital after complaining of stomach pains - and shocked staff saw the trapped scalpel.

By then the blade was in too dangerous a position to remove. Mr Hutchinson later died from unrelated complications, but his widow Jean believes his anxiety over the blunder hastened his death.

Peter Walsh of Action Against Medical Accidents said: "It is almost certain that there are a lot more incidents of this nature that are unknown because people never find out about it. Also there will be a great number of people who even when this happens decide not to take legal action.

"What is so tragic is that these are such basic errors - they are so easily avoidable through routine checks.

"The only thing to be thankful of is that in the context of the number of surgical procedures carried out every year this is thankfully very small."

Blair Gibbs, spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "It is good that victims of these kinds of medical blunders can now get compensation, but because of the way we pay for healthcare in Britain, the bill ultimately lands on the taxpayer.

"Patients are rightly becoming more demanding of good quality free healthcare, and in time this will mean that either the NHS starts performing like BUPA - and makes fewer of these kinds of mistakes - or we have to stop relying on the taxpayer to pay the full costs."