June 8, 2026

Never Events, Always Lessons

The Never Events Wake Up Call

When Sky News reported that the NHS racked up 403 so-called 'never events' last year, I paused. Not the dramatic, cinematic pause. More the slow exhale of someone who has seen what happens inside organisations when pressure outruns capability.

Wrong-body-part surgery. Instruments left inside people. Even an accidental organ removal. It reads like a list of things that would get you booted off any medical drama for being too far-fetched. Yet here we are.

I’m not a doctor. I don’t pretend to be. But I do know what happens when teams are understaffed, leaders are overwhelmed, communication breaks down and the wrong people sit in the wrong roles. These aren’t medical issues alone. They’re organisational failures. And every business leader should pay attention.

Source: Sky News, 'Gloves left inside patients and accidental organ removal among 403 never mistakes in NHS last year'.

The Quiet Cost Of Chaos

If you run a start-up, a scale-up or an SME, you might think this has nothing to do with you. But trust me, you don’t need scalpels and surgical theatres for things to go catastrophically wrong. All you need is:

• The wrong hire in a mission critical role
• A team stretched so thin the cracks look like canyons
• Leaders who can’t see the warning signs because they’re drowning too
• Processes held together with vibes and optimism

The NHS example is extreme, but the underlying pattern is universal. Pressure exposes everything: capability gaps, poor hiring, broken workflows, the absence of psychological safety. Chaos never stays quiet for long.

People Problems Become Operational Disasters

Every ‘never event’ in healthcare comes from a chain of micro-failures. Not enough staff. Not enough training. Not enough oversight. Not enough time to think.

Sound familiar? It should. Because in tech, data, cyber or any complex environment, the same pattern shows up. A rushed deployment brings down a platform. A data engineer misses a step and corrupts the warehouse. A cyber analyst fails to escalate a threat because they’re overwhelmed.

In the moment, these look like individual mistakes. But step back, and you see systemic issues born from bad hiring, reactive leadership and teams pushed beyond human limits.

The Leadership Lesson Nobody Wants To Hear

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Most 'never events' in companies are predictable. Leaders spot the signs months before the disaster. They see:

• High turnover in one function
• A role left unfilled for six months because 'we’re being careful'
• One superstar carrying half the department
• People avoiding certain colleagues like they’re radioactive
• Everyone firefighting instead of building

The red flags are there, waving like they’re trying to get your attention on live television. But founders and COOs push the problem down the road. Hiring feels expensive. Slowing down feels impossible. Admitting a bad hire feels embarrassing.

Then one day something breaks, and the cost is ten times worse.

Hire Slow, Fire Fast? Try Hire Smart, Lead Better

The old saying 'hire slow, fire fast' sounds wise until your team is underwater. I’ve seen businesses that 'hired slow' so aggressively that the remaining staff were burnt to ash.

Here’s the truth: the answer isn’t slow or fast. It’s smart. Whether you’re running a fintech, a greentech scale-up or a heritage organisation trying to modernise systems, you need:

• Leaders who prioritise clear communication
• Teams sized for the actual workload, not the wishful one
• People with the right skills, not just the right salary expectation
• Processes that catch mistakes before they hit production

And yes — a recruitment strategy that understands the stakes, the timeline and the reality of your tech environment.

Questions Every Leader Should Ask This Week

If an NHS-style report came out about your organisation tomorrow, what would it say? Ask yourself:

• Where are we relying on heroics instead of healthy systems?
• Which roles are high risk because they’re unfilled or underfilled?
• Who is close to burnout but too loyal to say it aloud?
• What workflows depend on one person knowing 'the magic steps'?
• If someone joined the team today, would they survive the learning curve?

If any of those questions hit a nerve, good. That’s where your next move begins.

The Real Never Event

The real 'never event' is pretending your team can carry the weight indefinitely. No organisation outgrows weak hiring, brittle processes or leadership avoidance. Not tech, not data, not cyber, not even the NHS.

Build the right team, support them with systems that make excellence possible, and the disasters that 'should never happen' become the ones that actually never do.

And if you need help building that team, you know where to find me.

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