§ GUIDE · ANAESTHETIC ERRORS

Something went wrong
while you were under.

Anaesthesia is the part of an operation patients remember least and fear most. Claims arise when a drug or fluid was not given, a needle went to the wrong place, monitoring lapsed during a long case, or consent was never refreshed when the plan changed. These four judgments show what succeeded, and the one that did not.

Judgments read

Claimant succeeded

3 of 4

Parsons: agreed damages

£1.3 million

Chocken: settlement

£2.85 million

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§ BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER

For an anaesthetic claim to get anywhere, these things usually need to be true

The harm came from the anaesthetic itself: a nerve or spinal injury from an epidural, an arrest or breathing that stopped, a positioning injury in a long case, or awareness.
A specific step was missed: fluids not given during a spinal, consent not refreshed before further attempts under anaesthesia, monitoring that did not pick up a deterioration.
The harm is lasting: brain injury, sight loss, paralysis or weakness, permanent pain, or a recognised psychiatric injury.
It happened within the last three years, or you only recently learned that care fell short. There is no time limit while a person lacks capacity.

Guest shows the limit: a cardiac arrest during a long spinal operation left a young man with severe sight loss, and the claim failed because the cause was found to be a pulmonary embolism nobody could have prevented.

§ 01

Consent has to be refreshed when the plan changes.

Parsons v Isle of Wight NHS Trust [2023] EWHC 3115 (KB) is the leading recent anaesthetic judgment. Before bowel cancer surgery, anaesthetists made three failed attempts at an epidural while the patient was awake. They then put her under general anaesthetic and made seven more attempts, one of which pierced her spinal cord, leaving her with reduced power and sensation in her right leg, pain and loss of bladder sensation.

Ritchie J held that the anaesthetist should have obtained her informed consent before the attempts under anaesthetic and offered her the alternatives. That single failure caused the injury, and the whole of the agreed damages of £1.3 million followed from it. Consent is not a one-off at the start of the day: when a procedure changes course, the patient has to be told of the options and risks again.

§ 02

Fluids not given during a spinal: a mother's cardiac arrest.

In CTQ v King's College Hospital [2023] EWHC 2975 (KB), a 37-year-old mother suffered a cardiac arrest because intravenous fluids were not given during spinal anaesthesia just after her daughter's birth. She was left with a brain injury affecting memory and cognition and unable to work. The hospital admitted liability.

The court approved a settlement of a £2.5 million lump sum plus periodical payments for care, worth about £5.56 million in total on a conservative view. The judgment also confirms that courts can approve settlements for adults with cognitive impairment even where they have not formally been found to lack capacity. An anaesthetic error around a delivery is a maternal claim in its own right, even when the baby is unharmed.

§ 03

Long operations, and what happens to the rest of the body.

Chocken v Oxford University Hospitals [2020] EWHC 3269 (QB)

After a ten-hour facial reconstruction the claimant developed compartment syndrome in both legs in intensive care, thought to be linked to leg pressure cuffs, and was left with permanent nerve and muscle damage. The trust settled 70 days before trial for a £2.85 million lump sum plus annual payments of £48,000 rising to £85,000. The published judgment is about the lawyers' success fee; the settlement itself was not in dispute.

Guest v Nottingham University Hospitals [2026] EWHC 704 (KB)

During long spinal surgery for scoliosis the claimant deteriorated, arrested while being turned over, and was left with severe sight loss. He said the anaesthetist negligently failed to treat a raised potassium reading. The judge found the reading was spurious and the arrest was caused by a pulmonary embolism, so the claim failed.

§ 04

What the court asks.

The anaesthetic chart is the central document. It records minute by minute what drugs and fluids were given, blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels and the readings from every monitor. Experts reconstruct the case from it, which is why CTQ was admitted and why Guest turned on whether one potassium reading was real.

For epidurals and spinals, the record of each attempt and of what the patient was told matters as much as the technique. Parsons succeeded on consent, not on the needle. For sedation during procedures such as endoscopy, the dose given, the monitoring in place and who was watching the patient are the questions.

Causation is often decisive. A collapse under anaesthetic can have several possible mechanisms, and the claim only succeeds if the negligent one is shown, on the balance of probabilities, to be the cause.

§ 05

What helps a claim.

The anaesthetic chart, pre-operative assessment and consent form.
Theatre and recovery notes, including who was present and when.
Intensive care records if you were admitted afterwards.
The trust's incident investigation and any duty of candour letter.
A clear account from you or your family of what was said about the anaesthetic beforehand and what you remember.

§ THE JUDGMENTS BEHIND THIS GUIDE

The four judgments behind this guide.

Three claimants succeeded, two of them with settlements worth millions for lifelong care. The fourth shows why the cause of a collapse decides everything.

Claimant succeeded£1.3M

Parsons v Isle of Wight NHS Trust

[2023] EWHC 3115 (KB)·2023·Liability decided at trial

Before bowel cancer surgery, anaesthetists made three failed epidural attempts while the patient was awake and then seven more after putting her under anaesthetic, one of which pierced her spinal cord. Ritchie J held the anaesthetist should have obtained her informed consent before the unconscious attempts and offered alternatives, and that this failure caused the injury.

Consent is not a one-off: when a procedure changes course (here, moving to unconscious epidural attempts), the patient must be told of the options and risks again. The full agreed £1.3m followed from that single consent failure.

Settlement approved£2.5M

CTQ v King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

[2023] EWHC 2975 (KB)·2023·Settlement approved by the court

A 37-year-old mother suffered a cardiac arrest because intravenous fluids were not given during spinal anaesthesia just after her daughter's birth, leaving her with a brain injury; the hospital admitted liability. The court used its inherent jurisdiction to approve a settlement worth roughly £5.56m including periodical payments.

Anaesthetic errors around delivery can found a maternal negligence claim even when the baby is unharmed. Courts can approve settlements for adults with cognitive impairment even where they have not formally been found to lack capacity.

Claimant succeeded£2.85M

Chocken v Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

[2020] EWHC 3269 (QB)·2020·Appeal decision

After a 10-hour facial reconstruction the claimant developed compartment syndrome in both legs in intensive care and was left with permanent damage; the trust settled 70 days before trial for a £2.85 million lump sum plus annual payments of £48,000 rising to £85,000. This later judgment dealt only with the lawyers' success fee and dismissed the claimant's appeal on that point.

Compartment syndrome arising from post-operative monitoring failures can attract multi-million-pound settlements with periodical payments for lifelong care, although this figure comes from a costs judgment rather than a damages judgment.

Claim failed

Callum Joe Guest v Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

[2026] EWHC 704 (KB)·2026·Liability decided at trial

During long spinal surgery for scoliosis and chest wall deformity the claimant deteriorated, arrested while being turned over, and was left with severe sight loss. He alleged the anaesthetist negligently failed to treat a raised potassium reading, but the judge found that reading was spurious and the arrest was caused by a pulmonary embolism, so the claim failed.

Even after a devastating complication a claim fails if the court finds the true cause was a non-negligent event, so proving the mechanism of injury is often the decisive issue.

Browse the whole case library →

Contains information licensed under the Open Justice - Licence v2.0. Judgments from Find Case Law, The National Archives. Summaries are ours; amounts only where printed in the judgment.

§ QUESTIONS

Common questions

I woke up during surgery. Is that a claim?

Accidental awareness can found a claim where it resulted from a drug, dose or monitoring failure and caused a recognised psychiatric injury. None of the four judgments here is an awareness case, so the free assessment and a solicitor's view are the right first steps.

I have nerve damage after an epidural. Is that negligence?

Nerve injury is a recognised risk of epidurals and spinals, so the question is whether something was done that should not have been. Parsons v Isle of Wight succeeded because the anaesthetist continued attempts under anaesthetic without refreshing the patient's consent, not because the needle caused injury.

I was given too much sedation during a colonoscopy and stopped breathing. Can I claim?

Possibly. The dose, your weight and medical history, the monitoring in place and how quickly the team responded are what an expert will look at. Lasting harm is needed for a claim to be worth pursuing.

My operation was done under local anaesthetic when I was told it would be general. Is that a claim?

A change of plan without your agreement raises a consent issue, as Parsons shows. But a claim also needs harm that flowed from the change. If the operation went well and the only consequence was distress on the day, a complaint may be the better route.

Why are some of these settlements so large?

Because they pay for lifelong care. CTQ was a £2.5 million lump sum plus annual periodical payments; Chocken was £2.85 million plus annual payments rising to £85,000. Our guides on periodical payments and how catastrophic awards are built explain the structure.

How long do I have?

Usually three years from the operation or from when you first knew something had gone wrong. Where the person injured lacks mental capacity there is no time limit, and for a child the three years run from their eighteenth birthday.

§ MORE GUIDES

Plain answers to the other questions people ask.

Periodical payments →

How periodical payment orders work: a lump sum plus index-linked yearly payments for life, stepped payments, and why headline totals differ. Real settlements.

Settlement approval →

Why a settlement for a child or protected party must be approved by a judge, what the judge checks, and what public approval judgments reveal about real sums.

Consent claims →

Informed consent claims since Montgomery: material risks, reasonable alternatives, consent as an ongoing process, and why documented consent defeats claims.

Compartment syndrome →

How compartment syndrome claims work, what courts award after an amputation, and when a later amputation is not blamed on the negligence. Real judgments.

Injured during surgery →

Ten published judgments on injuries caused during surgery: nerves, bile ducts, bowel, perforations and anaesthetics. Four won, six lost. What made the difference.

NHS payout data →

Official NHS Resolution figures, band by band, for 2024/25.

This guide is general information about the law in England and Wales, not legal advice about your case. ClaimGavel is run by Costart Projects Ltd on behalf of Tomlin & Partners, a specialist medical negligence firm regulated by the SRA. The free assessment on this page is an AI overview to show you roughly where you stand; a solicitor confirms the position in a free, no-obligation conversation.

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