More than 300 surgical instruments have been returned to NHS hospitals dirty or broken by private contractors hired to sterilise them, new figures show.

The instruments, including scalpels, forceps and microscopes, have had to be returned by NHS Lanarkshire over the past year because they were unsterile or damaged, which has led to claims that operations are being cancelled because of shortages of essential equipment.

NHS Lanarkshire is one of a growing number of health boards which uses a private contractor, Synergy Health Care PLC, to clean its equipment.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has expressed concern about the practice, which it says is putting patients’ lives at risk because it can lead to operations being cancelled, often after patients have been prepped for theatre.

NHS Lanarkshire said it was unable to say how many operations had been cancelled as a result of shortages of clean equipment.

However, figures obtained using Freedom of Information legislation show that from January 2008 to September 2009, 332 instruments were returned to the contractor because they were unsterile or damaged.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian do not use private contractors. However, about one-quarter of UK hospitals now outsource all or some this work, including Grampian.

The Evening Times recently reported how 83-year-old Jemima Campbell’s hip surgery at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, was postponed twice after she had been prepped for surgery because of an apparent lack of sterile equipment.

NHS Lanarkshire blamed the incident on a tightening of hygiene procedures as a result of an increase in surgical infections earlier that month.

However, her family, who have written to Cabinet Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon, claim they were told by staff that the private firm it uses to sterilise equipment was not cleaning instruments properly, resulting in them having to be returned for to the contractor.

A BMA spokeswoman said: “It is very concerning that operations may be cancelled because surgical instruments have not been cleaned properly.

“Patient safety must not be put at risk because equipment is not fit for use.

“In addition, cancelling operations will put increased pressure on waiting times.

We hope that boards will re-examine the current systems to ensure that they are delivering the standards expected of our NHS.”

All NHS hospitals used to clean their own surgical equipment in-house. But fears over hospital superbugs, the possible spread of variant CJD, the human form of ‘mad cow disease’, and growing commercialisation in the NHS means about one-quarter of hospitals have now contracted the process to outside firms, and others are planning to follow suit.

In March 2007, Aberdeenshire man Alan Paterson’s 12-hour operation to remove a blood clot was cancelled when he was already lying on a trolley and connected to monitors.

Surgeons in Aberdeen had noticed that three sets of instruments they planned to use were not sterile and so had to be discarded.

A recent study revealed that about 5000 patients every year in the UK are told their procedure can’t take place because the hospital doesn’t have the instruments.

A spokesperson for NHS Lanarkshire said: “We work very closely with Synergy, who provide decontamination services for our equipment, to continually review the level of defects.

“This is the subject of regular operational meetings to ensure that issues arising are resolved and we have robust procedures in place to monitor the delivery and storage of surgical instruments .

“Synergy process approximately 23,500 trays and sets of surgical instruments for us each month.

“This equates to 282,000 trays per year with a total of around 3,546,000 individual theatre instruments.

“The level of defects identified lie within industry standards, with 0.005% of instruments damaged or not properly cleaned”.

Despite repeated requests, no-one from Swindon-based Synergy Health Care PLC was available for comment.