Prevention of Future Deaths report: Surekha Shivalkar (7 January 2022)

Summary

Surekha Shivalkar was a 78-year-old woman who was scheduled for elective total hip replacement revision surgery. Following surgery she suffered a cardiac arrest and subsequently died. The conclusion of the inquest was that died from multi-organ failure and complications arising during anaesthesia and hip revision surgery, which led to hypotension and hypoperfusion in a woman with ischaemic heart and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In his report, the Coroner raises concerns about the lack of a use of a formal risk assessment tool prior to her surgery, communication failures between the orthopaedic surgical team and the anaesthetist and the departure of the Senior Consultant surgeon prior to the surgeries conclusion. 

Content

In this report, the Coroner states their concerns as follows:

•  No formal risk assessment tool was adopted to assess preoperative risk prior to Mrs Shivalkar's total hip replacement revision surgery. Despite policy changes at Barts Heath NHS Trust since 2018, there remains no requirement to utilise such a tool.
• Poor communication between the orthopaedic surgical team and the anaesthetist during surgery led to a collective failure to identify a critically ill patient. General and non-specific questions regarding the patient's welfare passed between the two teams but no targeted questions requiring clear factual responses were asked. Had such questions been put, a different outcome may have arisen.
• The Senior Consultant surgeon left the surgery prior to its conclusion, lengthening the procedure. The Consultant did not effectively communicate his reasons for leaving the surgery to the other members of the surgical team, neither did the surgical notes refer to his early departure. The Consultants statement to the court did not indicate that he had left the surgery before its conclusion. No system was in place to; assess whether a decision to leave surgery was appropriate, or to effectively monitor when a surgeon leaves theatre.

 This report was sent to the Royal London Hospital, Department of Health and Social Care, Royal College of Surgeons and Royal College of Anaesthetists.