Patient is given wrong anaesthetic at Oswestry hospital

Those incidents, which were classed as serious events, happened at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry in January.

Members of the hospital's NHS trust board were given details at their February meeting .

One patient, who had paralysis, was about to undergo surgery when there was a failure to deliver an anaesthetic agent in the anaesthetic room.

The trust board was told that the failure was realised very quickly and righted before the person went into surgery.

Bev Tabernacle Director of Nursing, said: "We are in the process of carrying out an investigation to understand how this occurred, and whether there are any procedural changes we could make to avoid a repeat in the future. All of our serious incidents go through a thorough root cause analysis"

In the second incident the wrong finger was incised. The surgical procedure was then carried out on the correct finger and the patient was informed.

"A thorough investigation has been held into this event, and we are satisfied that all the required safety procedures were followed.

"A number of learning points have been identified by the Trust. This error was identified immediately, and the planned procedure was completed without delay – the patient was informed at the earliest opportunity following completion of the surgery."

"We investigate all Serious Incidents and encourage a culture among our staff where they feel willing and able to flag up incidents, no matter how small or serious they may seem.

"This is important so that we can take learning from them and promote an honest and transparent culture around safety across the organisation.

"We analyse themes from our incidents and identify themes that require further analysis.

"We have seen an increase in the number of falls and work is being undertaken to improve our systems and processes regarding the management of falls. "