Bumbling doctors who left surgical instruments inside their patients cost the NHS more than £30 million over five years.
Hundreds of unlucky Brits who went under the knife later took legal action after discovering foreign bodies had been accidentally inserted during routine procedures.
A total of £34 million was spent resolving 692 complaints between 2018 and 2023, including £15.8 million on damages to victims.
The average payout for surgical disasters – which happen on average twice a week – was £22,000, although at least 35 were resolved without any financial payment.
But each successful bid cost a further £27,000 in legal fees for both sides, paid from the public purse, bringing the total price of the error to £49,000.
In the 12 months to last April, around 128 complaints were resolved for £6.85 million
And in 2018, a record 158 claims were successful, but payments totaled just £6.3 million.
Figures obtained by The Sun show that at least five of the errors occurred during plastic surgery, while a dozen items were left behind during orthopedic surgery or exams.
The most common devices left inside NHS patients include cotton swabs, clips and plastic tubes.
Experts suggest that the level of complaints is just the tip of the iceberg, as many people don’t discover an error unless it causes a problem, often years later.
Incidents often happen as a result of carelessness by doctors under pressure in stressful situations such as emergency surgery.
Stocky patients are also more likely to be affected, as their extra body mass can make it difficult to locate tools that have been left behind.
An NHS spokeswoman said: “NHS staff work exceptionally hard to keep patients safe and thankfully these incidents are rare, however when they do occur trusts must investigate what happened and take effective action to improve as part of NHS patient safety procedures.”
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