Man Was Mistakenly Circumcised After Hospital Medical Notes Were Mixed Up

Last time I had an operation, my surgeon came to see me - y'know, to check exactly what he was doing, put my mind at ease - the usual, I thought.

One man wasn't as lucky though after he was mistakenly circumcised when bungling surgeons mixed up his notes with another patient, an NHS report has revealed.

The patient, who has not been named, was scheduled to have a cystoscopy - a procedure which uses a thin camera to examine inside the bladder. Quite different to having your foreskin removed then, yeah?

How did this possibly happen though? Well, it would seem that surgeons wrongly mixed up his medical notes with another patient last September.

The error was one of eight 'never events' which took place at University Hospital of Leicester NHS Trusts last year.

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Leicester City Clinical Commissioning Group (LCCCG) also revealed a swab was left inside a child after nasal surgery in another of the events that should 'never' occur.

In April, another patient also had surgery intended for another man with a similar name.

The report stated: "Failure to demonstrate learning from never events has been a concern for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland commissioners and partners for some time.

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"The CCG has an important role in continuing to support UHL to achieve their quality and safety ambitions and intends to do this modelling the comprehensive and collaborative approach described within the CQC report.

"This will be achieved through continuing to strengthen our relationships and aligning our improvement approach around a common set of clinical priorities."

The trust say never events are 'serious, largely preventable safety incidents that should not occur if the available preventative measures are implemented'.

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Moira Durbridge, director of safety and risk at Leicester's Hospitals said: "We remain deeply and genuinely sorry to those patients involved, and of course we have personally apologised to each one.

"We are committed to learning and improving and have enshrined this work into our clinical priorities within our Quality Strategy for 2019/20."

Here are all eight of the never events from 2018: First up is January - when a patient was wrongly connected to air flow-meter instead of oxygen. An air flow-meter measures how much air is flowing through a tube...

The second incident happened in March when a swab was left inside child who had adenoidectomy (nasal operation).

Next up occurred a month later in April: the patient was wrongly connected to air flow-meter instead of oxygen. Are you getting ‎déjà vu too, or is it just me?

Then there was another never event in April where medics mixed-up notes of men with similar names meaning that a patient had the wrong operation.

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In May when a patient had the wrong surgery after there was a blunder with the consent form process.

Shortly after in June, surgeons incorrectly marked a patient for an angiogram - this is a test which allows your doctor to look inside your coronary arteries. Your coronary arteries transport blood into and out of the cardiac muscle.

Then, back in September, the male patient mentioned previously was mistakenly circumcised.

Finally comes November when a patient had a hip nail implanted in the wrong side.

Topics: News, Hospital, UK, NHS

Rebecca Shepherd

I'm Becky - a journalist at LADbible. I graduated with a First Class BA in Journalism before going on to cover criminal court cases, medical tribunals and breaking news for the national media - which inevitably and eventually became as glum as it sounds. Can often be found rocking a bag for life - which I made a 'thing' way before Rihanna. You can contact me at [email protected]

@RJShepherd94