A surgical revolution: checklist that could prevent thousands of deaths

An aircraft-style safety test is to be implemented in all British hospitals to reduce the risks of surgery, using a simple checklist that has been proved to save thousands of lives.

Surgeons and nurses will run through the checks before each operation in the same way that pilots check their aircraft before take-off. In Michigan, a similar checklist to reduce hospital infections is estimated to have saved 1,500 lives in the first 18 months.

More than eight million operations were carried out in the UK last year, equivalent to one for every eight people in the population, and there were 129,000 reported incidents in which patients were put at risk, according to the National Patient Safety Agency.

An estimated 2,000 NHS patients die each year as a result of errors in treatment, and an inquiry by the National Audit Office in 2005 concluded that half of all incidents could have been avoided if staff had learnt the lessons of previous mistakes.