AN injection in the wrong eye, a pregnant woman who wasn’t told she had Hepatitis C for seven months and an insulin overdose, are among the 66 serious incidents reported at hospitals.

A patient also committed suicide following surgery and another was invited to a cancer wellbeing event, despite not having been formally diagnosed with the disease at the time.

Details of the incidents were published in a joint-clinical commissioning group report released ahead of a meeting on Friday.

The five most serious incidents, categorised as “never events”, took place in hospitals operated by Basildon and Thurrock University NHS Foundation Trust (BTUH) and the Mid Essex Hospitals NHS Trust (MEHT).

There were no “never events” in hospitals operated by the Southend University Hospitals Foundation Trust but there were several serious incidents, including a patient going blind following a delay in getting an appointment.

Two of the “never events” that occurred under BTUH involved medical staff giving one patient an overdose of insulin and another having an oral painkiller injected through a canula. The Hepatitis error was also at BTUH.

Another patient was connected to an air supply rather than an oxygen supply which can be fatal.

Both the “never events” by MEHT involved errors made during surgery.

During one the wrong finger was operated on, in the other the wrong eye.

A spokesman for MEHT said: “The trust has offered a sincere apology to those involved and will ensure that rigorous investigations identify the root causes so that the systems and processes in place to deliver safe care can be strengthened.

“These never events were reported externally and are currently under investigation.

“MEHT encourages all staff to report near miss events and incidents in order to allow lessons to be learnt.” A spokesman for BTUH said they strive to provide high quality care and encourage staff to report issues as quickly as possible so they can be investigated.