THE family of a Hereford grandfather who died following surgery say they hope nobody else has to endure their grief.

Retired cider maker Alan Tringham, who lived off Three Elms Road, died at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in June 2012 just five days after an operation to repair the 78 year-old's heart valves.

A coroner has in the past week concluded the surgery carried out under the guidance of Dr Ian Wilson was "more extensive than necessary".

Birmingham coroner Louise Hunt said Mr Tringham did not require part of the surgery he received, meaning he had a prolonged operation and bypass time.

Mr Tringham's family say they are now looking to take legal action, although they have not yet decided who against.

"We are devastated by the narrative verdict given by the coroner which directly confirmed all the concerns that we have had all along," said the family of Mr Tringham in a statement after the hearing.

"We are grateful to Lanyon Bowdler (which represented them) for their dedication to the case leading up to the inquest to ensure we reached this verdict which identified why and how our beloved father came to his death following his operation.

“We hope the inquest will prevent any other family having to go through the devastation we have endured over the last two years.

"It was important for us to know exactly what happened to our father and what events and actions led to his untimely death."

During the four-day inquest in Birmingham, which covered the deaths of two other men who also died while under the care of Dr Wilson, the surgeon said he sometimes recorded operational data from memory instead of written records.

Mrs Hunt said this could have led to problems not being identified sooner.

"An historic failure to accurately record post operative data for all patients resulted in a missed opportunity to identify problems at an earlier stage which may have resulted in Mr Tringham’s operation being dealt with by a different surgeon," she said.

"Given the extent of his underlying heart condition, he did not require the atrial fibrillation ablation (removal of unwanted tissue) procedure.

"As a result of this additional element to his operation he had a prolonged operation and bypass time.

"This, coupled with a long cardioplegia (stopping of the heart) time of 62 minutes on balance of probabilities, resulted in additional damage to his heart.

"This contributed to further heart failure postoperatively leading to multi-organ failure and his death."

Giving evidence during the inquest, Dr Wilson, who is now believed to be working at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital, said the procedure went “appropriately”.

“When he arrived back on the IT Unit things appeared to be satisfactory,” he said.

“It’s not clear why he deteriorated.”

He added without the surgery there would have been a 34 per cent mortality rate for Mr Tringham.