Woman's death in hospital after surgery went wrong 'could not be reasonably avoided'

The family of Sarah Aaron, who died at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on June 27, 2022 just days after elective weight loss surgery, took the chance to quiz medics with their concerns about the 47-year-old's care at the resumed inquest into her death.

John Ellery, Senior Shropshire & Telford Coroner had heard that there had been "tensions or conflict" between the findings of a hospital investigation and the evidence heard at Tuesday's inquest.

But he said he would deal with that by giving the hospital a chance to consider if it needed to update its report and then let the family see the results.

Mr Ellery, sitting at the Coroner's Court at Shirehall, concluded that Mrs Aaron, a personal assistant from Horsehay, died of complication of a second surgical procedure following a complication of a first.

The inquest heard that Shrewsbury-born Mrs Aaron underwent elective gastric surgery on June 21 and was due to be discharged home the next day, following what is normally a "relatively low-risk" procedure.

However, sadly Mrs Aaron started to feel unwell and had two further surgical procedures on June 24 and 27 by which time her her condition had seriously deteriorated.

The inquest heard that the procedure on June 24 was followed by a leak in her bowel which occurred likely late on the 26th, and she began to become septic from this point. She suffered a cardiac arrest at 5.10am on the 27th.

By that time, the inquest heard that her condition was irretrievable, with death being confirmed at 9.50pm that night.

Sarah's husband, David Aaron, took the opportunity to ask a series questions of medical staff about the treatment his wife received, including whether they could have done more to treat sepsis.

He focused on the crucial hours between 10pm on June 26 and 5am the next day, after when the family agreed to the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support after her condition became irretrievable.