Eighty-three staff and patient accidents in Hartlepool's hospital last year

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust responded to freedom of information request from the Mail to reveal that 24 of these led to injuries, which required medical treatment.

During the financial year ending March 2016, there was one claim against the trust in relation to University Hospital of Hartlepool, which resulted in a £3,000 settlement being paid.

Hospital bosses say the health and safety of staff, patients and visitors is of huge importance and they do all they can to prevent accidents.

But they say when accidents do happen they are thoroughly investigated to ensure where necessary any lessons can be learned from what happened.

Thye figures show that six incidents resulted in musculoskeletal injuries, three were sprains or strains, and three led to bruises or swelling.

A further three accidents led to lacerations, two were abrasions and one resulted in a pulled ligament. There were three where the injuries were not recorded.

More serious injuries included on resulting in bloodloss, a separate accident leading to a fracture, and a needlestick injury.

The number one cause of people being hurt was falls – resulting in 14 injuries, followed by two each of lifting; stretching or bending; what has been recorded as being ‘struck against something’; and traps.

There was one each of ‘collision with an object’ and ‘injury due to glass’.

The most accident-prone age group was 51-to-60-year-olds with seven recorded incidents, followed by 42-to-50-year-olds with three; and 31-to-40-year-olds with two.

The age groups of 0-to-20; 21-to-30; 61-to-70; and 71-to-80 suffered one incident each.

Ian Clough, associate director of support services at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We take the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff, patients and visitors very seriously and we do everything we can to prevent accidents from happening on our hospital sites.

“Inevitably, accidents do occasionally happen and when they do, each incident is investigated appropriately so that we can learn lessons to help prevent them from happening again.”