IT IS completely unacceptable that any patient coming out of the operating theatres at the Southampton General Hospital should have bits of surgical equipment or swabs left inside them.

Having worked in the Theatre Services Department at the SGH for 27 years this is the procedure that should have been carried out.

Every single individual instrument is checked off by two members of theatre services staff prior to the operation, it is then always accompanied by a fully ticked instrument check list and signed by two members of staff who are compiling the instruments for each patient's particular operation.

The equipment then goes through a sterilization and quality control procedure before being handed over to the operating theatres.

The same procedure is then exactly repeated after each operation is finished and returned equipment is checked and signed correct by two members of staff with records stored for at least three years.

The theatre department was also fully accredited to the highest European standards ISO for department and quality control procedures.

In my view it is no good for the SUHT management to put the blame on staff not counting equipment properly after each operation.

The rot and responsibly for the deteriorating standards starts with them.

I suspect the answer lies with the staff and services cut backs, the loss of the accreditation standards and quality control procedures which are expensive to maintain and keep.

A full investigation should now take place into why the SGHT management were able to keep these incident away from public view and into what is going on with theatre equipment services.

Thank goodness for the freedom of information act and the Daily Echo for picking up on this story as we may never had known until someone died with half the operation equipment used still stuck inside of them.

PETER SOWERBY North Baddesley