Physician assistants are not doctors and should not be regulated as such, BMA says
Senior doctors are urging MPs to reject government plans to regulate ‘physician associates’, whose increasing use within the NHS has divided the medical profession.
The British Medical Association has said that allowing the General Medical Council (GMC) to regulate physician associates (PAs) would blur the lines between doctors and non-doctors.
Many clinicians oppose the increasing use of PAs, who they fear will wrongly be perceived by patients as doctors even if they do not have a medical degree. They have raised concerns that it is “potentially dangerous” to let the GMC – which regulates doctors – regulate PAs from April, as ministers plan, because this could confuse the public, the status of doctors and patients the risk of being treated by someone. without the right skills.
The BMA is taking out advertisements in the Guardian and on social media asking MPs on a House of Commons committee investigating the plan to vote against it when they consider it on Thursday. “PAs are not the same as physicians, and blurring the lines can have tragic consequences for patients who think they have seen a doctor when they have not,” the ads say.
Nearly nine in ten (87%) doctors believe the way PAs are used in the NHS threatens patient safety, said Prof Philip Banfield, chair of the BMA’s council.
“Now MPs have the opportunity to listen and act on the very clear warnings from doctors. They do not have to wave through the government’s ill-conceived plans, plans that have been shaped largely without the public’s knowledge or control.”
Concerns about the potential risk posed by physician employees increased death of Emily Chestertona 30-year-old actor, in 2022. She had a blood clot, but a physician assistant at her general practice, twice misdiagnosed her symptoms such as a sprain, long Covid and anxiety. A coroner later said she likely would have survived if she had been referred to the emergency room.
There are already around 4,000 PAs working in the NHS in the UK, but a major expansion is planned. For example, the NHS in England plans to increase the number of staff working in hospitals and GP practices to 10,000 by 2038 to help close gaps in its workforce.
The BMA’s campaign highlights simmering tensions over PAs within the medical profession. PAs are graduates, but not in medicine, who have completed a two-year master’s degree in physician associate studies. They have been used by the NHS since 2004. They are intended to assist physicians and may take a patient’s medical history, perform examinations and diagnose diseases, although they are intended to be supervised by a physician.
The BMA has said that while PAs can be useful, their job title should be renamed ‘physician assistants’, as it was until 2014, to reduce the risk of patients confusing them with doctors. Furthermore, the union added, it is “manifestly unfair” for a PA to be paid £11,000 more than a newly qualified doctor, despite their lack of medical training.
Two of Britain’s medical royal colleges, the organizations that professionally represent different types of doctors, are facing a grassroots uprising from members dissatisfied with their support for medical professionals, a group of positions that includes doctors, anesthetists and surgical providers.
Dissatisfaction among members of the Royal College of Physicians, which represents hospital doctors mainly in England, has forced it to hold an emergency general meeting on January 25 to discuss the issue. The Royal College of Anesthetists held a general meeting on the issue last October, where critics expressed concern about the use of “anaesthetists”.
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh released a detailed statement on Tuesday outlining her “significant ongoing concerns” about physician employees. Its use and expansion could undermine “the unique role of the physician as a physician (who possesses) the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills to enable highly qualified clinical reasoning, complex decision-making and management of uncertainty,” according to the statement. the report.
Physician assistants “should not be regarded as substitutes for doctors”, their title should be changed back to “physician assistants”, and their role in the NHS should not be allowed to undergo “scope creep” so that they take on tasks took names for which they were not medically qualified, the council added.
A spokesperson for GMC said: “We are pleased to be able to support the development of these valuable professionals as we recognize the important role they play in the medical workforce. Regulation will help increase the contribution doctors and anesthetists can make to the UK healthcare system, while keeping patients safe.”
Doctors and anesthetists will have to explain to patients who they are and what their role is and only work within the limits of their competence, the GMC added.