Swab was left inside lung surgery patient at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital

A medical swab was left inside the body of a patient during surgery, an inquest has heard.

Retired accountant John Massey was admitted to New Cross Hospital for the surgery to remove a tumour from his lung on May 1 last year.

But an inquest into the 82-year-old yesterday heard that a swab was mistakenly left in him, and only discovered after a follow-up operation five days later. The inquest at Smethwick Council House heard from two scrub nurses who had been involved in his operation and who had counted the number of swabs out of the operating room.

Both said that as far as they were concerned the proper procedures were followed, with the right number of swabs present after the surgery.

One of the nurses, Joy Patriarca, said: "As far as I know we had done our best, and it was a straightforward procedure, we did our counts successfully, and it was a complete count. If I had known there was a problem at the time I would have told the surgeon."

Mr Ian Morgan, the surgeon who carried out the procedure, said that following surgery he did not see a swab.

Asked by assistant Black Country coroner Angus Smillie if he was satisfied he had not missed one, Mr Morgan said: "At the time I was satisfied, clearly in retrospect I'm not."

The inquest was also told that in the days following the first surgery three x-rays were taken of Mr Massey's chest and no-one that reviewed them, including Mr Morgan, spotted the swab.

However, subsequent investigations found that the swab was visible.

Asked why it was not seen, Mr Morgan said: "Because I wasn't looking for one. There had been nothing raised to suggest there was an issue."

Mr Massey, from Brook Street, Kingswinford, was not recovering as well as hoped and a second operation was carried out on May 5, when one more swab was counted out than expected.

Investigations, during which Mr Morgan was excluded from work for a year, revealed it had been left inside Mr Massey. He died on May 26 last year, with a post-mortem revealing 'overwhelming' pneumonia.

The inquest heard that although the surgery contributed to the pneumonia due to Mr Massey's age, the swab had no impact on his health. Mr Smillie recorded he died of natural causes.