My wife died after the NHS' 'cut-price' physician associates botched her operation

A grieving husband has blamed his wife's death on the NHS using 'cheap' physician associates.

Roy Pollitt didn't know his 77-year-old wife, Susan, was being treated by a physician associate, a relatively new role that only requires two years of medical training and originally designed to support doctors.

Physician associates, also called PAs, have been mired in controversy, being labelled cut-price medics and substitutes for doctors as they're cheaper to hire.

PAs are not qualified to diagnose patients, prescribe drugs or order scans, and are meant to be constantly monitored by a doctor.

Yet as a concerning number of cases suggest, hospitals are using PAs to cover for a lack of doctors in wards.

An inquest held earlier this year into Ms Pollitt's died from an infection that developed after a PA botched a procedure to drain excess fluid from her abdomen.

'She would have lived if the NHS had not used cheap labour ,' Mr Pollitt told the BBC .

It comes as Health Secretary Wes Streeting today said there are 'legitimate concerns' over the role of PA amid worries they are being used to replace fully-qualified doctors.

At an inquest into Mrs Pollit's death held earlier this year, a coroner said her fate highlighted a lack of a national framework covering PAs' training, supervision and competency.

That inquest found she died after an 'unnecessary medical procedure' was carried out by a physician associate.

Mrs Pollitts, a retired housewife and mother of four children, was originally admitted to The Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester with a broken arm after a fall at her home last year.

But she died five days later after a procedure to remove excess fluid from her abdomen was botched by a PA.

When Mrs Pollitt arrived in hospital, a decision was made to remove excess fluid from her abdomen – known as an ascitic drain – due to another health condition.

This procedure involves cutting the abdomen to insert a plastic tube and stitching a cuff to the skin around it.

In Mrs Pollitt's case it was carried out by an unnamed PA – despite there being 'no adequate procedure for ensuring PAs were competent and capable of undertaking' this task, the coroner said.

Ascitic drains should be left in for no more than six hours – in Mrs Pollitt's case it was there for nearly a day. She developed an infection called bacterial peritonitis and subsequently died.

Mrs Pollitt's daughter, Kate, recalled staffing levels at Royal Oldham seemed 'very low' the night that she died.

The BBC reported that they had seen evidence that PAs were being used to cover nearly a fifth of doctors shifts at Northern Care Alliance the Trust that Royal Oldham is part of.

It has also emerged that the PA in question was only approved as competent in using the equipment for an ascitic drain because a nurse assumed he was a doctor.

Despite the tragedy, the Pollitts don't blame the individual PA involved, describing him as the only staff member who had shown empathy.

'He thought he was doing right... but he was in a situation where he wasn't supported,' Kate said.

'We just want change – it won't mean things like this won't ever happen again but if we can help reduce the chances then it's worth it.'

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning Mr Streeting said he wanted to look into issues surrounding PAs before a planned expansion of their role within the NHS.

Mr Streeting acknowledged there were concerns around the tasks PAs were doing and transparency, with patients not necessarily realising they weren't being treated by a doctor.

He said: 'I am taking these concerns seriously and I've spent a lot of time listening to clinicians, listening to physician associates as well, by the way.

'I think they do have a role to play and can add value, not least in freeing up doctors' time to do the things that only doctors can do.

'But I think there are legitimate concerns about the extent of doctor substitution and replacing doctors with PAs, there are issues around transparency.

Mr Streeting said he would be saying more about the associate roles 'in the coming weeks', hinting an expansion in the number of the roles could be paused while work is carried out to address concerns.

There have been concerns about the expanding scope of PAs for years.

MailOnline's sister publication, The Mail On Sunday, has revealed dozens of cases where PAs had been allowed to cover doctors' shifts and care for severely unwell patients.

In response, the Government pledged to end the practice and ensure patients are 'cared for by the right, qualified healthcare professional'.

A group of senior doctors are also suing the medical regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), the doctors' regulator, for failing to set out clear rules over which medical tasks PAs are allowed to do.

Lawyers representing the group, who call themselves Anaesthetists United, has accused the GMC of of 'acting unlawfully' by failing to create strict regulations on the roles of PAs and specifically anaesthesia associates (AAs) – PAs who assist with sedating patients before surgery.

The group claims that AAs are being allowed to put patients to sleep without a doctor present. They also claim that, in some hospitals, AAs are sedating children without the supervision of a doctor.

And earlier this year, doctors union the British Medical Association (BMA) also called for PAs to be barred from diagnosing patients.

Mrs Pollitt's case isn't an isolated one. In 2022, actress Emily Chesterton , 30, died of a blood clot after a PA dismissed her symptoms as anxiety and gave her pills instead of directing her to A&E.

And in February, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Brinton told a House of Lords debate that doctors had reported '70 instances of avoidable patient harm and near misses caused by PAs', including 'fatalities, missed diagnoses causing terminal diseases, sepsis and heart attacks'.

The NHS employs more than 3,500 PAs in England and plans to increase this to 10,000 by 2036.

Northern Care Alliance chief medical officer Dr Rafik Bedair said the trust was 'saddened' that Mrs Pollitt didn't receive the standard of care she should of and they were 'deeply sorry'.

He added that the Trust would learn from the incident to make care safer for future patients.