In the age of modern healthcare, every time a patient dies after a routine operation or procedure, it’s a case of medical error.

This is a partial response for you to read and get a feel for the type of response examiners are looking for. This extract is around a 4A in the BMAT mark scheme. With today's surgical technology, the possibilities of complications and death are heavily reduced. Healthcare has been modernised extensively with detailed imaging and testing facilities which give doctors the best chance of ensuring that a patient is safe to operate on. Most of the deaths from routine procedures can arise from human error; the incorrect tests were ordered, the wrong transfusion given or even the wrong patient being operated on because nobody checked their wristband. These procedures are tried and tested, performed every hour of every day by numerous surgeons up and down the country so it is on the skills and training of the staff that comes into question when something goes wrong. With more junior staff taking the scalpel earlier than ever due to the accelerated training pathways, the problem will surely increase. However, there are always inherent risks with any surgery; it's why we ask patients to sign a disclaimer before we operate. This allows the patient to make an informed choice about the surgery and lets them know about the risks associated. Things have and do go wrong and it is not always the doctors fault. Maybe during the routine procedure the physician encounters another issue that was not picked up during earlier testing which means the operation can no longer go ahead as planned. For example during a routine hernia operation, it is discovered that the patient was also suffering from an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm which ruptured as the organs were disturbed and despite the medical team rushing to stem the bleeding, the patient passed away. This existing complication was not made by medical error, but through the natural processes by which diseases develop and thus the death of the patient is attributed to that.