00:00A Teesside Hospital trust has defended its safety record after figures revealed it had the highest number of serious medical mistakes, known as never events, in the North East over the past five years.
00:10Between 2020 and 2025, South Teess Hospital's NHS Foundation Trust recorded 27 never events, incidents that are entirely preventable and should never occur if proper safety procedures are followed.
00:22These include surgical items being left inside patients, operations on the wrong body part, or fitting incorrect implants.
00:30The figure is 68% higher than the next nearest trust, which is South Teesside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trusts, where they supported 16 such incidents.
00:40It's also three times the number recorded by North Teess in Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which logged nine.
00:46South Teess has pushed back against the comparisons, arguing that as one of the largest and most complex trusts in the region, with over a million patients appointments a year and 37 specialist services, it operates under greater pressure than many others.
01:02The trust also highlighted that its major trauma centre handled around half of all trauma cases in the North East in Cumbria.
01:09A spokesperson said, on the rare occasion an unintentional outcome occurs, our teams go above and beyond to ensure we deliver meaningful improvements.
01:18However, medical negligence lawyers and patient safety campaigners argue the figures point to deeper systemic problems.
01:25National safety experts say that issues like staff fatigue, unclear roles, equipment problems and organisational pressure are often behind such errors.
01:34In total, 150 NEVER events were reported across the North East over the five year period, raising ongoing concerns about patient safety in hospitals across the region.
01:45Not only that, but the belief that the people who are surveying their patients in the country have been able to approach the South East over the five year period, but she has even to state the technology service at the East over the six year period.
01:48That's one thing that we do, is that we do not recognize the same condition as a state of the United States for over the years.
01:51And, most importantly, there is a number of the non-partum in the South East over the next year including the South East over the last year.
01:54And, it's a number of the Patriot of the State of incant double-stated attack and upper-stated attack and the Eastern to the National of the Patriot of the State of the United States.
01:57With that, we'll examine our portion of the national safety there.
01:59It's a number of the national safety.
02:01The national safety of the St.
02:10St.
Comments