'Confusing medical role putting patients at risk'

Coroner issues warning after grandmother died following procedure at hospital

- CHRIS SLATER

PATIENTS are being put at risk due to a lack of regulation and oversight of medical staff in a ‘relatively new’ role who could be confused for doctors, a coroner has warned.

It comes after the death of a much loved Oldham grandmother following an unnecessary procedure incorrectly carried out by a Physician Associate (PA), a role which has sparked controversy in the medical community.

Susan Pollitt, 77, was admitted to the Royal Oldham Hospital in July last year after falling and breaking her arm. Due to an underlying health condition, the decision was taken to carry out an ascetic drain, a procedure to remove excess fluid from her abdomen.

It was carried out by a PA despite, according to the coroner who oversaw an inquest into her death, there being ‘no adequate procedure for ensuring PAs were competent and capable of undertaking such procedures’ at the Northern Care Alliance, the trust which runs the Royal Oldham.

Ascetic drains should be left in for no more than six hours, however in total Susan’s remained in place for 21 hours. It was clamped for 12 of these hours after an ‘inappropriate’ decision by the PA to do so.

Susan, a retired housewife from Failsworth who had four children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, developed an infection called bacterial peritonitis and died July 16 last year, five days after the procedure had been carried out.

Her death was the ‘result of an unnecessary medical procedure’ and was contributed to by neglect, senior coroner Joanne Kearsley concluded following the inquest at Rochdale Coroners’ Court.

“On the balance of probabilities she would not have died had the drain not been inserted for 21 hours,” she said.

In response to the ruling, Susan’s daughter said her mother’s death had left the family ‘broken.’ She said something had gone ‘drastically wrong’ in her mother’s care and that ‘things need to change.’