NHS England to publish trust-by-trust 'never events' list

The national commissioning body will produce its first online list recording the number and type of incidents at each trust this October.

NHS England revealed the move in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the number and type of clinical incidents.

It has collected the data from trusts since the start of 2013-14 financial year.

The Department of Health has defined 25 types of never event, including surgery on the wrong area, misplaced nasogastric tubes and “maladministration of insulin”.

The BBC has previously reported that between 2009 and 2012 there had been 762 never events across the NHS, including 214 categorised as “wrong site surgery” and 322 as “retained foreign object post operation”.

Mike Durkin, NHS England’s director of patient safety, said it was intended to offer more detail on top of the existing annual data which records the number of never events in different types of care setting.

“NHS England intends to begin publishing more detailed data on never events on a more regular basis very soon, providing more frequent information on the numbers and kinds of never events that occur in the NHS as part of its wider commitment to transparency but also to stimulate more learning and preventative action in the NHS,” he said.

“Every single never event is one too many and, as Don Berwick made clear in his recent report, we need to openly and publicly report and address safety problems, not so that people can lay blame inappropriately, but so that we can fully understand and therefore learn more from the safety problems that the NHS, like all healthcare systems, faces.”