More than 1,100 patients have suffered from very serious errors in English hospitals in the last four years.
The mistakes - known as "never events" because they are so serious they should never happen - include a woman having her fallopian tubes removed instead of her appendix and a man's testicle being removed, instead of just the cyst on it.
More than 400 people suffered due to "wrong site surgery" and more than 420 had "foreign objects" left inside them after operations - including needles, scalpel blades, drill guides, swabs and gauzes.
Other serious mistakes revealed by a Press Association investigation include:
:: A woman had her kidney removed instead of an ovary
:: A patient had a biopsy taken from their liver instead of their pancreas
:: Operations were carried out on the wrong hips, eyes, legs and knees
:: Diabetic patients were not given insulin or were given the wrong type of blood during a transfusion
:: Some patients had feeding tubes which are meant to be fed into their stomach put in their lung - a mistake that can prove fatal
:: Patients have been mixed up or fallen through poorly secured windows, while prisoners have escaped while in hospital
Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: "It is a disgrace that such supposed 'never' incidents are still so prevalent.
"With all the systems and procedures that are in place within the NHS, how are such basic, avoidable mistakes still happening?
"There is clearly a lack of learning in the NHS. These 1,100 patients have been very badly let down by utter carelessness.
"It is especially unforgivable to operate on the wrong organ, and many such mistakes can never be rectified."
NHS England data shows there were 254 never events from April 2015 to the end of December 2015.
From April 2014 to March 2015, there were 306 and from April 2013 to March 2014, there were 338.
In the previous year - from April 2012 to March 2013 - there were 290.
The data for April to December 2015 is still regarded as provisional.
Never events are incidents that should never occur as guidance is in place to prevent them.
An NHS England spokeswoman said: "One never event is too many and we mustn't underestimate the effect on the patients concerned.
"However there are 4.6 million hospital admissions that lead to surgical care each year and, despite stringent measures put in place, on rare occasions these incidents do occur.
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