{"id":1197,"date":"2023-12-22T10:17:47","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T10:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/physician-associates-dauk-co-chair-discusses-concerns-on-national-radio\/"},"modified":"2023-12-22T10:17:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T10:17:47","slug":"physician-associates-dauk-co-chair-discusses-concerns-on-national-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/physician-associates-dauk-co-chair-discusses-concerns-on-national-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Physician associates: DAUK co-chair discusses concerns on national radio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The co-chair of the Doctors\u2019 Association UK has renewed his call for an immediate pause on the rollout of physician associates (PAs) during an interview on national radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Matt Kneale said there were \u201cmassive public safety concerns\u201d across the health profession at the rapid expansion of PA and anaesthesia associate (AA) roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Tom Swarbrick on LBC, Dr Kneale said the public did not understand the roles and that they would not be treated by a doctor if seen by a PA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the case of Emily Chesterton, which is tragic, her mother said they had no idea she wasn\u2019t seeing a doctor and if they were aware they would have made her see one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not doctors. They do far less training, we\u2019re talking 1,500 hours over a couple of years compared to almost 6,000 hours for a doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got massive concerns across the profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s purely a safety issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt DAUK, we\u2019ve collected hundreds of examples of patient harm and the BMA found 84 per cent of doctors have concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to do something urgently<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd rather than roll this out at pace, which is what the Government plans to do with its Long Term Workforce Plan, we need to put an immediate pause on this and reassess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safety issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr Kneale added: \u201cIf we\u2019re going to argue that this is effective and safe to do then why on earth are doctors studying for five or six years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo clearly it isn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo do your job as a doctor you need a fundamental understanding of anatomy, physiology, all sorts of stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we have collected examples of PAs who are essentially operating or assisting operations in theatre and learning anatomy on the job. How is that at all a safe thing to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt cannot be and any reasonable person who hears this from the first instance thinks this is an outrageous idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Kneale said that Government plans for the General Medical Council (GMC) to regulate PAs and AAs would only confuse the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoctors do make mistakes and that\u2019s tragic,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really upsetting for us and the public when mistakes happen, but that\u2019s with all the expertise and education that we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re having people making mistakes without that expertise, that\u2019s a scandal in itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe expect more for our public and for the protection of the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re complaining about the General Medical Council (GMC) taking over as the regulator, which is what the Government wants to do, we think that blurs the lines further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou take the case of Emily Chesterton, she didn\u2019t know she was seeing a physician associate, well how is this going to help when they\u2019re regulated under the GMC?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAs employed instead of doctors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr Kneale said that PA and AA roles were being expanded at the expense of doctors, particularly in general practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said there were enough trained doctors to fill the roles if there was the support and funding from the Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGeneral practice has a different set of issues to hospital practice but PAs, and other allied professionals, are being expanded at pace in general practice and that\u2019s at the expense of more doctors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRelatively, they\u2019re pausing the recruitment of new GPs, but they\u2019re expanding and funding significant numbers of PAs and other healthcare workers into general practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe and the BMA are encouraging people to ask if I am seeing a doctor in these consultations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added: \u201cThere is no shortage of doctors. There\u2019s not enough jobs for doctors but there are plenty of doctors willing to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne example will be anaesthesia. We had 2,000 people apply for jobs in anaesthesia this year and only about 500 or so got a job, but the Government wants to introduce 2,000 anaesthesia associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes no sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want a doctor to do the job, they exist. What doesn\u2019t exist is the backing and the funding for that from the Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to see a commitment from the Government to support doctors and the medical profession rather than going for this piecemeal, rushed approach that\u2019s proven to be unsafe from our own data.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The co-chair of the Doctors\u2019 Association UK has renewed his call for an immediate pause on the rollout of physician associates (PAs) during an interview…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,29,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dauk-news","category-protect-the-frontline","category-the-nhs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}