Cases of serious errors at Medway Maritime Hospital can be revealed for the first time.

Details of patient deaths due to long delays in treatment, and one death after doctors failed to spot a major cardiac arrest, have emerged in a dossier obtained by the Medway Messenger.

One patient not seen by medics for 40 hours died on a gynaecology ward after being discharged from a high-dependency unit.

At least four others complained that swabs had been left inside them – including one for two years – after treatment at the Gillingham hospital.

The incidents were published in a three-year report by Medway NHS Foundation Trust, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

It details 79 Serious Untoward Incidents (SUIs). They often relate to cases where a patient, member of staff or the public suffers serious injury, harm or unexpected death.

Medway NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said cases make up a small proportion of the one million patients it has treated in the last three years.

The cases include:

A patient who died after a major cardiac arrest on an ECG recording was not spotted.

A patient who died after a cardiac arrest following an "extended" wait in A&E.

A patient who had a cardiac arrest and died after medics "failed to recognise" urgent intensive care was needed.

A baby who died after a delayed emergency Caesarean section.

A patient who died after a delay in the cardiac arrest team being called to a ward.

Another patient needed a swab surgically removed after an X-ray revealed it had been left inside them in an operation two years earlier.

Faxes containing confidential patient data were mistakenly sent to a recruitment agency instead of social services.

A spokesman for Medway NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said: "Patient safety is our top priority.

"Because of this, the trust has a strict policy around the reporting of Serious Untoward Incidents and every single SUI is taken extremely seriously at the highest level and fully investigated.

"Outcomes of investigations are thoroughly evaluated and where these highlight the need for our processes to change, the lessons learnt are embedded across the trust to prevent the risk of the incident occurring again."

"The trust encourages an open culture of reporting and investigating these events thoroughly. During the last three years, over one million patients have been seen or treated at Medway Maritime Hospital.