A pair of forceps were left inside a patient in east Kent

by Jess Banham

A man has had to undergo more surgery after FORCEPS were left inside his body during an operation.

Medics left the surgical implements inside the patient at a hospital in east Kent.

They only discovered the blunder when the man went back for a routine X-ray - and he had to go back under the knife.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said an investigation is under way.

The incident, which happened in April, is one of three in Kent to be revealed in figures covering the last three years obtained by KentOnline.

The two other cases happened at Medway Maritime Hospital, in Gillingham.

In one incident recorded by Medway NHS Foundation Trust, a drill bit broke off in a patient's femur.

Another patient had a small fragment of a drill left inside the palm of their hand.

In both instances, it was decided the drill bits should be left inside the patients.

Dr Mike Smith, vice chairman of the Patients' Association, said: "If the dangers of going in again to remove it are greater than leaving it there, that’s something that needs to be assessed at the time.

"But whenever there are humans involved something must go wrong - obviously if it could be avoided completely that would be ideal."

An investigation is now under way to find out exactly what happened in the case of the forceps being left inside a patient.

Julie Pearce, chief nurse at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation
Trust, said: "These are events that shouldn’t happen and happen very, very rarely.

"In the last three years, we've only had one of those events and each
year we do about 90,000 surgical procedures."

It is standard practice for all surgical tools to be counted both before and after an operation to check if any are missing.

Ms Pearce, who is also director of quality and operations at East Kent
Hospitals, said: "What normally happens is that if the count doesn't match up, an X-ray is done while the patient is still in theatre.

"In this case, staff hadn't completely adhered to policy - they had scanned the patient's abdomen, but hadn't done a full X-ray."

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust said there were no reported cases of surgical implements being left inside patients in the last three years.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is yet to answer a request for figures.