A hospital has apologised to a family and agreed to pay compensation following an incident in which a man died.

Gary Rayner, 46, went into Sunderland Royal Hospital on June 26th 2007 for a routine operation on his lymph nodes after previously beating cancer, the Sunderland Echo reports.

However, on June 30th, Mr Rayner began sweating profusely and then went into cardiac arrest.

Although a crash team was called, they could not resuscitate him and he died at 23:00 BST.

A subsequent investigation revealed that staff failed to provide anti-clotting drugs until June 28th, by which time it was too late for the patient.

Les Boobis, medical director and consultant surgeon of City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, gave evidence to support this and it was ruled that Mr Rayner’s family should receive compensation.

A spokesperson for the hospital said a compensation settlement had been agreed with the family of the deceased.

Clinical negligence occurs when a professional in the health service provides care that is deemed to be below standard and this causes physical injury, death or distress.