Surgical staff gave the wrong patient a biopsy while a vaginal swab was left inside a woman during a hospital procedure, it has been revealed.

Five so-called 'never events' occurred at the under-pressure East Kent University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) over nine months last year.

The NHS defines a "never event" as a serious incident – one that could lead to serious injury or death – that is wholly preventable under basic practice.

Data from the healthcare body shows 325 occurred across 133 of the 219 trusts in England – an average of 2.4 incidents per affected trust.

Twelve of those were in Kent and Medway, between April and December of last year. Health bosses have apologised to patients impacted by the "failings in their care".

In east Kent, there was one "never event" where surgeons performed a biopsy on the wrong patient.

On another occasion, surgeons were tasked with removing a lesion – a lump or abnormal mark on the skin – from a patient's face but removed the wrong one.

Another incident saw the wrong amount of tissue excised from a patient's body.

There were two occasions in when foreign objects were left inside a patient following a procedure.

In one, a vaginal swab was not removed, while another patient retained a cannula in their throat from a tracheostomy.

The data, released under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, does not go into further detail, such as which hospital each incident took place at.

The trust, which operates a number of hospitals in the east of the county, has been facing huge scrutiny following a damning report into its maternity services.

Recently, a surprise inspection of the department by the Care Quality Commission found a number of areas of concern at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and its sister hospital, the QEQM in Margate.

Elsewhere in the county, Medway NHS Foundation Trust recorded three "never events", while there were two each at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.The latter rose to three in January this year.

Medway incidents one case of a "retained foreign object post-procedure". On another occasion, the wrong implant or prosthesis was used. There was also an incident where a patient had a "misplaced naso or oro gastric tubes and feed administered".

The information has been obtained by medical negligence solicitors Blackwater Law after submitting FOIs to the four acute trusts in Kent.

Jason Brady, partner and head of the firm, described the details of the events as "concerning".

"At Blackwater Law we see the impact that these incidents have, not just on the person affected, but also on their families," he added.

A spokesman for NHS Kent and Medway said: “We are sorry to patients impacted by these failings in their care – the NHS takes these events extremely seriously and investigates each one.

"We support trusts across Kent and Medway to make sure lessons are learned and improvements made.

"NHS staff are encouraged to report incidents like this to ensure transparency and to prevent anything similar from happening again.”