Pensioner was blunder victim

The blunder took place at Royal Sussex County Hospital

A hospital patient who died after local anaesthetic was wrongly injected into a vein instead of the spine was a 74-year-old pensioner, it has been revealed.

He has been named as retired British Rail ticket inspector Philip Silsbury, of Littlehampton, West Sussex.

An inquest in Brighton heard on Wednesday how Mr Silsbury died on February 10 five days after the blunder at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Mr Silsbury was undergoing routine surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weakness in one of the body's largest blood vessels.

A post-mortem examination carried out in Brighton by independent pathologist Rod Chapman said multiple organ failure was the primary cause of death, with cardiac arrest from an overdose of pain relief drug Bupivicaine as the secondary cause.

The doctor, a consultant anaesthetist, concerned has been suspended while an investigation takes place.

Independent inquiry

The inquest also heard that the Royal College of Anaesthetists had launched an independent inquiry into the incident this week.

Mr Silsbury's widow, who was not named in court, pleaded through friends to be allowed to grieve in privacy.

A statement read in court by Brighton Health Care NHS Trust spokeswoman Melinda Stone said: "Mrs Silsbury is elderly and she is not at all well she just wants to be left to grieve.

"All Mrs Silsbury wants is to lay her husband to rest peacefully."

In a statement read in court, Stuart Welling, chief executive of the Brighton Health Care NHS Trust, expressed deepest sympathies to Mrs Silsbury.

He said: "I hope to meet her as soon as she feels ready to discuss the findings of these two investigations into the circumstances which lead to her husband's tragic death."

The inquest was adjourned until May 3

Second inquest

The inquest into Mr Silsbury's death opened on the same day as a separate hearing into the death of 18-year-old leukaemia sufferer Wayne Jowett.

Wayne died at the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, on February 2 four weeks after the powerful drug Vincristine was injected into his spine, rather than correctly into his vein.

Nottingham coroner Dr Nigel Chapman told the inquest that initial results from a Home Office pathologist showed Mr Jowett died from "brain damage caused by Vincristine".

The inquest was adjourned to a date to be announced after it was told Mr Jowett's family had not finalised the funeral arrangements as further tests were still being carried out.

Two junior doctors, said by the Queen's Medical Centre to have been involved in the fatal incident, have been suspended.