The General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) at the British Medical Association (BMA) has voted to phase out existing physician associates in general practice and bar practices from hiring new PAs.
The decision was made at last week’s GPC UK meeting.
“We are aware that this is a challenging and politically heightened issue,” Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the GPC, said: “At the heart of it is patient safety, which needs to be prioritised, alongside acknowledging the responsibilities of employing practices and welfare of existing employees.
“It’s no secret that we desperately need more staff in general practice, but we need to be sure that staff who see patients are suitably trained and competent to see them unsupervised. Workload is inextricably linked to the recruitment and retention of the workforce, so additional roles should not generate more work for already-stretched GPs.
“We’d like to see PAs being given opportunities to retrain and take up other roles in the NHS, but the bottom line is getting more GPs into the workforce. We want to be able to give patients the care and services they need, when they need them, with the most appropriate clinician for their needs. To do that, the Government must urgently invest in practice staff such as GPs and general practice nurses.”
The decision follows the revelation by the GMC earlier this month that it would allow PAs to continue to practise unregistered until December 2026.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “The concept of highly motivated, skilled people to support busy, overstretched GPs is a good one. As a profession, we’ve been saying for years how overstretched we all are, and it would be hard to say no to the offer of having a skilled colleague take on many of the more routine tasks of patient care that we’re overqualified to deal with.
“But that’s not what’s happened. Instead, many of our PA colleagues have not only been given inadequately supervised clinical roles to manage undifferentiated illness, there’s also no requisite for regulation for at least two more years. None of this is the fault of physician associates.
“We’re acutely aware of the current struggles that so many GPs are facing at the moment, so the GPC’s focus on doing more to get GPs back into the workforce is absolutely the right thing to do, whilst also ensuring we find appropriate roles for our PA colleagues so that patient safety is fully maintained.”