Shocking death toll after NHS medics mix-up patients’ food and air tubes over last five years  

Nearly 30 patients have died after NHS staff misplaced feeding tubes in their airways due to blunders, MailOnline can reveal.

In the past five years, 145 cases of incorrectly inserted nasogastric tubes have been officially recorded by hospitals in England. Twenty-eight ended in death.

Patients who have difficulty swallowing, such as stroke victims, can be fed or given medication through plastic tubes that go up the nose and then into the stomach.

In extremely rare cases, medics mistakenly place the tube in the patient’s airways, allowing them to slowly drown as fluid seeps into their lungs.

The NHS classifies such accidents as ‘never events’, meaning they should be completely avoidable if protocol is followed.

Although half of the NHS Trusts in England reported zero incidents in the last five years, the so-called ‘never event’ happened seven times at Barts Health, seven times at United Lincolnshire Hospitals and six times at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals.

Recent NHS incident reports for these errors accessed under Freedom of Information describe how the medical blunders have led to patients being injured by misplaced nasogastric tubes.

In one incident, a stroke patient was given 300ml of nutrition into his lung after staff confused an earlier X-ray with the most recent and mistakenly concluded that the tube had been inserted correctly.

According to the report, “large volumes of blood-stained fluid” had to be aspirated from the patient’s lungs before they finally stabilized.

Another incident report related how a registered nurse misplaced a nasogastric tube in the airways of a stroke patient, causing 150 ml of feed to drip into the lung over a three-hour period.

The patient deteriorated rapidly and was found to be ‘extremely short of breath and unwell’ seven hours after the probe was incorrectly placed, recording a diagnosis of ‘possible pneumonia’.

Although the patient was x-rayed, the misplaced tube in their lung was not noticed until after the patient died.

In the past five years, there were 145 incidents of incorrectly inserted nasogastric tubes recorded by hospitals in England, 28 of which resulted in death

In another case, a patient was left with a nasogastric tube in the airway for two days after staff failed to diagnose the error, despite four x-rays of the patient being taken.

The tube, which delivered medication, caused injury to the patient’s lung when it eventually detached. A chest drain was inserted to reverse the damage and the patient later died of multiple organ failure.

Another report describes how a first-year doctor noticed that a stroke patient in “respiratory distress” had a nasogastric tube that was “bubbling” — a telltale sign it was in the airways.

The feeding was discontinued, but the patient, who had a history of chronic renal failure and high blood pressure, died six days after the incident.

Paul Whiteing, CEO of the charity Action against Medical Accidents said: ‘These data and the human stories behind each of these 145 incidents and deaths are shocking.

“It is vital that action is taken to ensure that the errors that led to these incidents are understood to minimize the recurrence of these incidents.

‘We understand that the NHS is under unprecedented pressure, but it is vital that training and learning are not sacrificed or avoidable accidents and deaths will only increase.’

An NHS spokesperson said: ‘NHS staff work extremely hard to protect patients and luckily events are never extremely rare.

‘If they do occur, NHS Trusts are required to investigate and understand what happened, which then helps them reduce the number of these incidents, making care for patients even safer.’