Surgery
Perioperative expert witnesses
Listed perioperative expert witnesses address theatre practice: checklists, counts, positioning, instrument handling and the systems that surround an operation. Their evidence concerns process rather than surgical judgement.
01
The evidence
What a perioperative practice expert witness is asked to determine
Perioperative instructions usually follow a never event or a positioning injury. Swab and instrument count records, the safety checklist, positioning documentation and staffing rotas establish whether the process failed and at which point, which is a different question from whether the surgeon erred. Staffing levels, handover between shifts and the competence of the person allocated to a role frequently form part of the same instruction.
- Whether the safety checklist was completed and recorded as intended.
- Whether swab, needle and instrument counts were performed and reconciled.
- Whether patient positioning and pressure care followed accepted practice.
- Whether decontamination, instrument tracking or implant checking is material to the incident.
- Where a process failing ends and a clinical judgement question begins.
Practitioners are listed across all four UK nations. Location can be narrowed in the register’s location listings before an instruction is made.
Claim contexts
Claims that instruct this discipline
These links describe the question perioperative practice evidence can answer. They do not prescribe the scope of an individual instruction.
Clinical negligence claims
Theatre process, counts and positioning during an operation.
View claim type → 02Personal injury claims
Injury sustained through positioning or retained material.
View claim type → 03Inquests
Theatre process evidence where the circumstances of a death are examined.
View claim type →Search the register by the discipline used in the instruction.
See perioperative practice listingsReport routes
Reports prepared
Checklists, count records and theatre registers support a records review report. A breach and causation report addresses the consequence of the process failing.
Surgical or anaesthetic evidence is normally required alongside a perioperative opinion. Each report page records what that route must contain.
Perioperative expert witness evidence
A perioperative expert witness addresses the system around the operation, and says plainly where the question passes to the operating surgeon.
Listings show the discipline and the areas covered, and enquiries go to the practitioner. See the Association for Perioperative Practice alongside the case material.
Directory search