Legal Basics - Medical Negligence
Last modified: 05 December 2007

Wrong site surgery      

A "wrong site operation" describes the tragic situation where a patient has had a medical procedure on the wrong part of their body or they have mistakenly had the wrong operation carried out on them. Such mistakes are probably the clearest form of medical or clinical negligence.

Fortunately such mistakes do not occur that often, but if they do then the patients should look to obtain specialist legal advice and representation at the earliest opportunity.

From March 2005 all doctors are to be given a check list to try and prevent these accidents. The National Patient Safety Agency and the Royal College of Surgeons has issued a protocol and every surgeon in every NHS trust will have to abide by these rules.

The new protocol is simply check and check again:

• In the ward - check identity, documentation and mark the site.
  
• Leaving the ward - do it again and make sure they have their x-rays
  
• In the anaesthetic room - check the mark, recheck the x-rays.
  
• In the operating theatre - make sure it's the right patient, check the correct site is marked and check which operation is meant to be happening.

This will make England and Wales the only countries in the world to have a unified protocol for correct site surgery. We hope it is strictly enforced.

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