The parents of a five-year-old girl who died during an operation said they were still searching for answers.

Bethany Bowen was having her spleen removed, when her aorta was ruptured by a surgical instrument and she died on the operating table.

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Dr Richard Whittington said that the fatal injury was caused during her surgery.

But he said it seemed unlikely that a new device, being used for the first time by the surgeon, was responsible.

Bethany's parents said that "incredible risks" were taken with their daughter, who her father described as "a very happy, smiley and almost excessively chatty little girl with beautiful curly blonde hair".

Richard Bowen said: "Until the NHS is called to account for taking these risks they will simply go on killing our children."

Mr Bowen, a 32-year-old design engineer from Cricklade, Wiltshire, and his wife Clare, a full-time mother, said they would be persuing a clinical negligence claim against Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

He said: "We have little faith that lessons will be learned until there is an independent body that monitors surgical training in the NHS. The risks that were taken by the Trust during the operation on Bethany were simply incredible and the attitude of the Trust was truly appalling."

Surgeons were using a morcellator, a type of rotating scalpel, to break down the organ, which was surrounded by a plastic bag, before its removal.

One of the three surgeons on the team had experience of the device but the doctor using the instrument had seen if for the first time that day.

Mr Bowen told the inquest that doctors said after Bethany's death that the morcellator blade had cut through an artery.

But the inquest at Oxford's Coroner's Court heard that the surgeon had received the necessary training and it was "improbable" that the instrument caused the wound.

Paul Rumley, the solicitor acting for the family during the inquest said: "Mr and Mrs Bowen are disappointed with the verdict. They still maintain that the operation performed on their daughter Bethany was not the one they consented to.

"The Trust admitted prior to the inquest hearing that it breached the required standard of skill and care in respect of Bethany's surgery and thereby caused her death."

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