More than 1,000 NHS operations are cancelled every week because of mistakes or avoidable shortages of equipment, according to figures.

Thousands of NHS operations cancelled because of blunders as complaints about standard of treatment rise
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"At least 57,000 surgeries were postponed for non-clinical reasons in 2007/08, many of them because of blunders – including a lack of beds.

Among the excuses for cancellation were a hospital running out of shavers to prepare patients for surgery, a surgeon disappearing following a fire alarm and a patient's interpreter failing to show up. In one case medics forgot about a patient who had been left in a side room awaiting surgery.

The number of cancellations – a 10 per cent increase on last year – comes as a damning report claims the NHS is failing in basic aspects of care and is not responding to complaints effectively."