It says NHS taxi driver, which could also mean volunteer, but nevertheless, should such equipment really have to rely on a cigarette lighter to stay powered?
NHS taxi driver killed patient by accidentally turning off heart pumphttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/0 ... -off-pump/A patient has died after an NHS taxi driver accidentally turned off a heart pump.
A report found the pump had been powered through the car’s cigarette lighter, which was turned off when the driver cut the car’s ignition, shutting off the backup battery.
The report said this sounded an alarm, and the driver, the patient and his wife all tried to re-power the pump.
But the patient lost vital circulation and, despite an ambulance being called, was declared dead after being taken to a local hospital.
The NHS blunder was disclosed by the health service as one of 48 fatal cases in the last three years involving faulty or missing equipment, or technology that was not operated properly.
Other examples included vital resuscitation equipment being misplaced, monitors not working properly and tangled oxygen tubes.
The dossier of fatal equipment failures was released by NHS England following a freedom of information request. It gives details of the incidents but does not disclose where they took place.
In another case, a heart patient died because his faulty heart monitor failed to sound a warning alarm when he went into cardiac arrest.
A hip fracture patient died when doctors were unable to untangle vital tubing wrapped around an oxygen tap.
The patient had been choking and needed suction to clear the blockage but the doctors could not find the equipment and connect it to the oxygen supply in time.
In another case, a hospital crash team lost a patient after the defibrillator they were using turned out not to have a working battery.
Paul Whiteing, chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, said: “Medicine is a complex system which increasingly relies on specialist equipment to aid patient safety and survival.
“It is vital, therefore, that there is a clear maintenance plan for such equipment and that staff have the training to use it as otherwise there is a real risk that patient safety will be compromised and, in the worst case, a patient’s life avoidably lost.”
An NHS England spokesman said: “Although incidents like these are thankfully rare, they remain deeply upsetting. It is essential that organisations learn from them and take effective steps to ensure equipment is fit for purpose.”
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