Nationwide warning over use of breathing machines in hospitals

A NATIONWIDE alert has been issued to hospitals after a series of incidents involving artificial breathing machines that have harmed patients.

The medical devices watchdog warned about dangers arising from faulty or wrongly used anaesthetic breathing systems, which are used to keep patients alive during major operations.

In a medical devices alert, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said it "continues" to receive reports of patient harm because of the problems. These happen on average "less than five times" a year, a spokesman said.

"We are not aware of any device-related deaths in the past five years, " he added.

Overall, about 250 incidents are reported involving anaesthetic machines each year, the MHRA said, "usually related to the way the equipment is used rather than a fault in the device itself".

In one case an anaesthetic breathing system was wrongly connected to the gas outlet of an anaesthetic machine.

When the patient started showing signs of distress, doctors wrongly interpreted it as bronchospasm, or tightening of the airways, and administered drugs.

By the time they realised there was a problem with the equipment, the patient's lung had collapsed but the person survived thanks to the prompt action of the surgeons.

Andrew Hartle, chairman of the Association of Anaesthetists' safety committee, said the death rate from anaesthetics is less than one in 100,000.

"If you are giving 3.5 million anaesthetics a year, problems are rare but can still happen," he said.