A CONSULTANT felt he should have been contacted at least five hours before his patient suffered difficulties as a result of a kidney operation, an inquest heard yesterday.

Afzal Aktar, 34, of Westbourne Street, Stockton, needed the operation following the discovery of an eight centimetre tumour in his kidney.

The self-employed take-away worker was told there was a one per cent mortality rate during the immediate post-operative period.

His long-term outlook would have been a 75 per cent chance of survival after five years and a 60 to 70 per cent chance that he could be cured in the long-term.

The procedure, carried out by consultant Mr Leslie Guilliland on December 9, last year, at the University Hospital of North Tees, seemed to go to plan and Mr Aktar seemed to be well immediately following the surgery.

But the inquest heard that, following the operation, Mr Aktar was moved from the critical care unit to a ward.

Only hours after the operation, his condition started to deteriorate.

Mr Guilliland, who said there was no apparent bleeding when the surgical wound was closed, was contacted by hospital staff at 3am on December 10.

Mr Aktar died from a cardiac arrest as an operation to save his life was about to take place.

A post-mortem examination showed that Mr Aktar had died following the removal of the left kidney from bleeding from two small veins, which had either not been ligated during the operation, possibly because they were not bleeding then, or the ligatures had slipped.

Mr Guilliland said: "I felt I should have been contacted between 9.50pm and 10.50pm by the on-call surgical team when Mr Aktar's blood pressure was well below the limits I had indicated were acceptable."

Coroner Michael Sheffield, sitting at Teesside Magistrates' Court, recorded a death of misadventure.

Mr Aktar's brother-in-law and first cousin Javid Latif, from Thornwood Avenue, Ingleby Barwick, said: "The family want time to review the situation before we make any decision about how to progress from here."

A spokesperson for North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust said: "We would like to offer our sincere condolences to the family.

"We are still involved in dialogue with the family over a complaint they have with us. Having attended the inquest, we will be able to resume the complaints process."