A tube which was supposed to be put into a patient’s stomach was instead put into a lung.
It happened last month at James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston - and was so serious it was deemed a ‘never event’, or a situation which should never happen.
The incident involved a patient who had a feeding tube inserted to the stomach.
The tube became partially withdrawn by the patient and on re-insertion was incorrectly inserted into the lung.
The mistake was identified by staff, confirmed via x-ray and the tube removed.
A new tube was then re-inserted to the stomach and there was no harm to the patient.
Misplacing the tube can be fatal and the NHS put out an alert over these incidents in 2016.
Director of Nursing Julia Hunt said: “Clearly, we don’t expect to see any never events at our hospital. However on the rare occasion when one does occur, we take the matter extremely seriously and conduct a thorough investigation to establish if there is any learning that can be taken forward to prevent any future occurrence.”
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