Sherwood Forest hospitals health board apologises after patient blunders

Details of the shocking blunders were revealed at a board meeting of the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – which runs King’s Mill and Mansfield Community hospitals – on August 5.

The meeting heard that in May, 2021, there had been two “never events” during quarter one of 2021/22.

In the first, a nerve block pain-killing injection was administered into the wrong leg of a patient in the emergency department after a patient had fallen and broken a thigh bone.

On June 2021 a bone marrow test was also performed on the wrong patient.Sherwood Forest Hospitals Medical Director, David Selwyn, said: “We are proud of the patient care that we offer at Sherwood, but on these occasions we clearly fell below our usual high standards, for which we are very sorry.

"We have sincerely apologised to both these patients personally and we continue to update them on our on-going investigations.

“These events are reported nationally so that, as a whole NHS, we can learn from them. As an organisation we are committed to continuously learn following investigations and we will ensure that any appropriate actions or changes are put place.”“We always share the findings of such investigations with the patients involved and widely with colleagues across our organisation.”

According to the NHS “Never events are serious incidents that are entirely preventable because guidance or safety recommendations providing strong systemic protective barriers are available at a national level, and should have been implemented.”

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