# Should we change our attitude towards 'never events'?



## Northerner (Sep 3, 2013)

Twenty-five errors in the health service are considered so intolerable and inexcusable that they have been designated 'never events'. They include wrong-site surgery, retained foreign objects and administering chemotherapy by the wrong route.

When a never event occurs, the organisation concerned must follow national procedures for reporting and investigating what happened and may pay a significant financial penalty. The object of the policy introduced in 2009 is to encourage greater organisational focus on specific serious safety issues. The problem with categorising certain incidents as never events is that it may divert attention from the most important goal of improving patient safety across the board

http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2013/sep/03/attitude-never-events-change


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