Ban physician associates from seeing NHS patients one-to-one, says RCP
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Medical body asks ministers to slow the hiring of PAs and take a ‘more measured approach’ to their integration. The NHS should slow or scrap altogether the recruitment of physician associates (PAs) and ban them from seeing patients one-to-one, medical groups are urging ministers.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), which represents hospital doctors, has called for a rethink of government plans to increase the number of PAs from 3,000 to 10,000 by the mid-2030s. They should also not be allowed to run clinics on their own, without a senior doctor present, because left unsupervised they could pose a risk to patients’ safety, the RCP added.
“We’re calling on NHS England to slow down the expansion of the PA role [and] review its projections for growth in the PA workforce”, said an RCP spokesperson. While the college is not proposing exactly how many more PAs the NHS should train and hire in coming years, it “believes their growth should be carefully managed” and NHS England needs to take “a more measured approach” to recruiting and using them.
Its move comes weeks after Wes Streeting ordered an independent investigation into the role and competence of PAs, after a series of cases in which patients they treated came to harm. They include Emily Chesterton who died after her blood clot was misdiagnosed by a PA as a calf strain.
The health secretary said the review, by Prof Gillian Leng, was needed because “there are legitimate concerns over transparency for patients, scope [of PAs’ role] and the substituting of [them for] doctors. These concerns have been ignored for too long.”.
