I am very sorry to hear about this matter. Firstly, I would like to extend my best wishes to your son and hope that he is recovering well.
What you may be looking at is a claim for medical negligence. Medical negligence occurs when you can show the medical professional has acted in such a way, which no other reasonably acting professional would have acted, and has resulted in “harm” due to said act of negligence. I hyphenate the word “harm” as this does not extend solely to physical harm, but also psychological or both.
The way a claim works is that you would receive compensation for the “harm” or injury itself. In addition to this, you can also claim quantifiable losses such as loss of earnings, expenses, outlays etc. You will, of course, be advised to have a solicitor deal with this matter on your behalf. Most of the large firms who offer no win no fee personal. Injury claims will also offer the same service for medical negligence claims and may be able to assess your claim for free. You have a period of 3 years to raise and action for medical negligence.
As you have stated the surgeons are looking to have a meeting about this matter I would await the outcome of this prior to looking at intimating any legal proceedings. In medicine unexpected things happen all the time, so they will "peer review" this to obtain an understanding of what has happened. The two points for medial negligence, as stated above is if you can show another surgeon would not have acted this way. So if they review the matter and the chronology of events during the surgery, and the other surgeon agree they would have done the same, even though the result ended in harm, this would be a defence. However, even if they do come to that determination, you do not need to accept it. The other point is the level of harm suffered which would need to quantified by assessment should you decide to claim.
If you feel this would result in a claim, due to the harm caused, your own solicitor can put the events of the surgery to an external surgeon (from a different hospital/region) to obtain an opinion on how they would have acted in the same events. If the determination was that they would not have then this would speak to wards potential negligence.
I shall provide you with a helpful link that will assist you in finding a solicitor/representative near your local area. This will provide you with someone nearby your area who can assist you if required.
I hope this information proved helpful. You will find a local solicitor who deals with these matters on the law society webpage which is as follows;
https://solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/ (England)
https://www.lawscot.org.uk/find-a-solicitor/ (Scotland)
https://www.lawsociety.ie/Find-a-Solicitor/Solicitor-Firm-Search/ (Ireland)
https://www.lawsoc-ni.org/solicitors (N. Ireland)
Hopefully, I have answered your query in a way that is simple and easy to understand. If anything remains unclear, I will be more than happy to clarify it for you. In the meantime, thank you once again for using our services.
Should you require any further assistance on this matter, please do not hesitate to post a further questions for additional assistance.
Kindest Regards.