PATIENTS being treated in Southampton have had several items accidentally left inside them after surgery including swabs, vaginal dressings and even drill bits.

In the past six years 10 items have been discovered stitched up inside patients' bodies after operations carried out under the auspices of University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.

Three of these blunders were discovered after patients went to GPs or a clinical review to request X-rays after experiencing post-op pain.

Two were discovered through routine examination while five were spotted by theatre staff at the time, according to information obtained under freedom of information laws.

The Trust said they do not hold details on the cost to the taxpayer of sorting out these medical mistakes or if action was taken against medics involved.

However, it does hold details on a case in 2009 when two swabs were accidentally left in the same patient because of a "counting issue".

The report stated: "The root cause was found to be a counting issue in that the nurse concerned was not able to count the number of swabs used.

"No action was taken following the investigation as there were many mitigating circumstances."

In total there were seven cases of swabs being found, two of vaginal packs and one of drill bits.

There were four discoveries last year – more than any other year on record.

Daily Echo: Southampton General Hospital, 2014

Eight out of the ten 10 cases happened at Southampton General Hospital.

The report said as far as the trust was aware there were no long term effects of these mistakes.

Juliet Pearce, head of patient safety at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, said:"Although we have a very low incidence of such incidents – these occurred over a period during which we performed more than 820,000 procedures – our aim is to eliminate them altogether.

"We have stringent processes to help us try to achieve this, including a safer surgery checklist and policy adapted from World Health Organisation guidelines, which ensure individuals and teams consistently follow critical safety steps to minimise the most common and avoidable risks.

"When errors do occur, we work hard to immediately highlight and investigate them so all individuals and teams involved learn from them quickly.

"We ensure that patients are informed as part of the investigation and we make information about this type of event available publicly to allow patients to track our performance."