Broken or malfunctioning medical equipment has been linked to more than 300 patient deaths over the past two years, damning NHS figures reveal.
Staff have detailed the catastrophic failings on a confidential safety database, released to the Daily Mail under Freedom of Information laws.
In one incident, ambulance crews fighting to restart a patient’s heart were unable to deliver a life-saving shock after their defibrillator’s battery died – and the spare they reached for was flat too. Other cases involved a defibrillator that stopped working in rain and resuscitation bags missing vital parts.
In another incident a patient was taken to an operating
To provide well-rounded coverage and a breadth of insight across various events, we rely on contributions from several staff writers, each bringing their own area of expertise to our publication.