At least 70 incidents that ‘should never be allowed to happen’ have taken place at hospitals in the north in the last five years.
As severe pressure on the health service continues to grow, figures obtained by The Irish News through Freedom of Information requests show that 70 so-called ‘Never Events’ have occured since 2019.
The data also shows that two deaths were caused as a result of such incidents in the last five years, one in the Belfast trust area and one in the South Eastern trust area.
‘Never Events’ in the NHS are defined as ‘wholly preventable’ incidents where there are ‘strong systemic protective barriers’ in place to avoid them. Each incident has the potential to cause serious harm or death.
They were first introduced in 2016 as a specific category of Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) following a recommendation included in a healthcare review by former English Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.
Examples of ‘never events’ include surgery performed on the wrong patient or the wrong site, retention of a foreign object post-procedure, scalding and misplaced tubes.
The data provided to The Irish News from the five health and social care trusts in the North show that the Belfast Trust alone was responsible for 37 Never Events.
The Royal Group of Hospitals have had the highest number of incidents from any hospital with 21 taking place during care provision since 2019.
The South Eastern trust recorded the next highest number with 17.
At least 14 were recorded during that time in the Southern trust, nine were recorded in the Western trust area and seven in the Northern trust.
SDLP MLA Colin McGrath says the figures are “extremely worrying” and that he has written to Health Minister Mike Nesbitt for an “urgent assessment” of the number of incidents.
“’Never Events’ by their very title should never occur but the sheer scale of them is worrying,” the South Down MLA said.
“It is most concerning too to hear that people have died as a result of these events - underlying the serious nature of them.
“I have written to the Minister on the back of these figures secured by the Irish News and have asked for an urgent assessment of them to ensure learning from the incidents is achieved to reduce their occurrence in the future.”
Alliance health spokesperson Danny Donnelly added: “Our health service is under huge pressure but Never Events are just that and should never happen. My thoughts are with anyone that have been impacted by these events and it’s imperative that there is an investigation and learning from each if these incidents to prevent them from ever happening again.”
The Department of Health says it recognises patient safety as an issue of ‘ultimate priority’.
A spokesperson said: “There is national guidance and safety recommendations approved for Northern Ireland and held by the Trusts that provides strong systemic barriers that should prevent occurrence of these types of incidents.
“Each HSC Trust should also have clear policies, procedures and training in place as part of a wider clinical governance system to ensure that relevant guidance and professional standards are implemented and adhered to at local provider level.
“If these incidents do occur, they must be reviewed by the healthcare provider to identify system learning and to deliver quality improvement aimed at minimizing the risk of harm and ultimately to deliver safer Health and Social Care services.”