London: A man who went into hospital for a minor operation was given a vasectomy instead, it emerged yesterday.

The surgeon’s “catastrophic” blunder meant the unnamed patient, thought to be of an age at which he hoped to father children, was left sterile.

Doctors, who were meant to be performing a straightforward urology procedure, apologised unreservedly and operated again to reverse the vasectomy. However, he faces an anxious wait to find out whether he is now fertile again. In one case in two, a man who has a vasectomy reversed is unable to impregnate his partner naturally and the success rate for fertility treatment is even lower, at about one in four.

Clinical negligence lawyers say the patient could be entitled to a six-figure compensation payout from the hospital. The mistake is classed by the NHS as a “never” event — one which should never happen if all the proper surgical procedures are followed.

It happened at Royal Liverpool Hospital in February, and the surgeon has been barred from operating while an investigation is concluded. Ian Cohen, clinical negligence lawyer at Slater and Gordon, said: “This is a truly shocking and worrying case.

“From what we know, there has been a catastrophic breakdown in procedure, as simple checks designed to ensure the correct operation is carried out on the right patient seem to have failed. In a worst-case scenario — sterility in a younger man with no children — the trust might be liable for a figure in excess of £100,000 [Dh623,000] in compensation.”

The hospital trust’s medical director, Dr Peter Williams, confirmed the blunder, adding: “We have apologised. We greatly regret the distress this has caused him. We are investigating this fully to understand why it occurred and how we can ensure it does not happen again.”

The hospital has refused to give the patient’s age citing medical confidentiality. However, the fact that a reversal was attempted indicates that he had hoped either to start a family or to have more children. Trust chief executive Aidan Kehoe told a board meeting it appeared that a World Health Organisation surgical safety checklist had not been followed.

Last year, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt revealed there had been 326 “never” events in 2011/12, among them 161 patients with foreign objects such as swabs left in their bodies, 70 suffering wrong-site surgery — where the wrong part of the body is operated upon — and 41 given incorrect implants. Another 148 such incidents were recorded by NHS England between April and September last year.