Staff at Nottingham's hospitals left objects inside patients during two procedures - mistakes that according to the NHS should never have happened.
The first "never event", which resulted in a dressing being left inside a patient, dated back to mid 2018 but was only discovered in February.
According to a report, presented to the senior figures on the board of directors at Nottingham University Hospitals on March 28, it was a vacuum-assisted closure dressing.
VAC therapy is used in the department of plastic surgery to help wound healing, or to keep a wound clean and sealed between multiple operations.
The second "never event", which was reported on March 4, was a pin left inside a patient following orthopaedic surgery.
According to the report both cases "resulted in moderate degrees of harm with associated further intervention required for the patients."
According to NHS Improvement guidelines "never events" are serious incidents which are "wholly preventable" because there are systems in place to stop them.
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When they happen they need to be learnt from.
Dr Keith Girling, NUH medical director, said: “It is with regret that we declared two 'Never Events' in February and March (1. retained dressing and 2. retained object following surgery).
"We reiterate our apologies to both patients that we made at the time of the incidents, which resulted in moderate harm and the requirement for further intervention in each case.
"Our investigations are ongoing to help understand the causes of these events so that we can learn from them, constantly improve the safety of our services and share the learning within NUH and across the wider healthcare community.”
