GPs have been urged to share their experiences and opinions of working with physician associates (PAs), as part of a new BMA survey.
The union has launched a survey so that doctors can ‘help shape’ the BMA’s response to the review into the safety of the roles announced by the Government last year.
As part of the online survey, doctors will be asked a series of questions related to their experiences and opinions ‘in relation to PAs and patient safety’. The BMA said that this will take around 10 minutes to complete and will close on 3 March.
The responses will to ‘inform’ the BMA’s submission to the review as well as the union’s policy development relating to PAs and AAs.
BMA council chair Professor Phil Banfield said: ‘Your submissions will help us to understand the views and experiences of doctors across the UK around the safety, efficacy and future of these roles within the healthcare system.
‘I would urge you to take 10 minutes to complete the survey and share with your colleagues – every voice matters and every response counts.’
The independent review, led by Professor Gillian Leng, president of the Royal Society of Medicine and former chief executive of NICE, was launched last year by health secretary Wes Streeting in order to ‘establish the facts’ and ‘take the heat out of the issue’.
It will consider the scope of practice for PAs ‘at the start of their working career’, including where PAs and anaesthesia associates (AAs) might release time for doctors to focus on more specialist care, and if and when an ‘enhanced’ scope of practice ‘might be appropriate’.
The Government has recently unveiled more details about the review, detailing that it will also cover cost-effectiveness of the roles and supervision.
The RCGP has already submitted its evidence to the review, affirming that there is ‘no role’ for PAs in general practice.
In her evidence, RCGP chair Professor Hawthorne included some ‘key factors’ underlying the decision to ‘oppose’ a role for PAs in general practice including concerns that the red lines for the PA role in general practice were ‘in many cases not being adhered to’.
Earlier this month, the GMC said that more than 250 PAs and AAs have already been granted a registration by the regulator, with a further 3,000 applications in progress.
Our PA was great, sadly left to work abroad.
Full time, enthusiastic, wanting to learn, wanting to see patients, did not take time off with trivia; compare and contrast with many of the Trainees.
And cheaper than Salaried or Locums- more activity for the same money, which is important as funds are finite and demand near infinite.
Full time IS important, particularly early on – for professional learning, and for continuity of care. If you care about Patients you want mostly full time staff. If you want to get competent you need to work full time for at least a few years.
That is great as long as you are happy for you and yours to be seen by non-doctors when you have a health need.
If you are unsure that is what YOU would want, for example, in your retirement then dismantling how primary care doctors are employed (to ensure your profit share is protected) may not be such a great idea.
Wow what a survey!…It is not about PAs safety more about the BMAs desperate attempts to scapegoat them. Honestly most of the questions are about reporting PAs/AAs designed to create a headline that justifies this. Only 1 question in 20 is about are PAs trustworthy colleagues who deliver good care to our patients and even that involves serious sentence gymnastics to work out the right box(The answer is they are). The BMA council should be asking who decided this survey and put it where it belongs before anyone else sees it.