A patient has died after being wrongly injected with local anaesthetic into a vein rather than the spine.

The blunder happened during an operation at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, on Wednesday.

The consultant involved has been suspended and the hospital has launched an investigation.

It has also asked the Royal College of Anaesthetists to undertake an independent review.

A statement from the hospital said it had proved impossible to save the patient and he died at 6am today.

Health chiefs apologised unreservedly to the patient's family for the error. No details of the patient have been released by the hospital at the request of relatives.

Stuart Welling, chief executive of Brighton Health Care NHS Trust, said: "The error involves a patient who was undergoing major surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which is a weakness in one of the body's largest blood vessels.

"A drug, Bupivicaine, which should have been given spinally after the operation for pain control was injected, in error, into the patient's vein by a senior experienced consultant."

The fatal blunder comes a week after a teenager died when an anti-cancer drug was accidentally injected into his spine instead of a vein. The teenager, who was on remission from leukaemia, died almost a month after the mistake.

Wayne Jowett, 18, had been receiving treatment at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham. Two junior doctors at the hospital have been suspended.