Physician associates to be renamed
Physician associates are to be renamed by the NHS to clarify their role as doctors' assistants following widespread public confusion.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, ordered a review into the role following a series of patient safety incidents involving physician associates (PAs), which included the deaths of people who thought they had been treated by a doctor.
Prof Gillian Leng, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine, is yet to write her report but it is understood changing the PA title will be a key recommendation when it is finalised later this month.
Doctors have been raising concerns about the growing number of PAs in the workforce for a number of years with around 3,500 currently employed and the NHS planning to treble this within the decade.
Unlike doctors, PAs have no medical degree and must only undergo a two-year postgraduate course following a non-medical undergraduate degree.
They are paid more than resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – at the beginning of their careers, which has been a key argument from the British Medical Association (BMA) as they reballot members on strike action over pay.
Mr Streeting is expected to accept Prof Leng's recommendation for a title change, with it likely to revert to a 'physician assistant', which is what the role was called when it first emerged more than 20 years ago and more accurately describes the job of assisting doctors.
Mistaken identity
The Telegraph has revealed a series of scandals involving PAs either causing patient harm, acting beyond what they are qualified to do or being used in place of doctors.
Earlier this year, a dossier of more than 600 incidents compiled by the BMA revealed egregious examples of PAs and anaesthetist associates (AAs) misdiagnosing cancer, impersonating doctors and illegally prescribing medication and ordering scans.
PAs have also been implicated in several high-profile patient deaths.
Emily Chesterton, a 30-year-old actress, died in 2022 after she was misdiagnosed twice by a PA whom she thought was a GP. She was told she had an ankle sprain when she had a blood clot that later travelled from her leg to her lung and killed her.
Her parents recently began a legal challenge against the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors and now associates, alongside a group called Anaesthetists United.
Earlier this year, a coroner said the PA who diagnosed Pamela Marking with a nosebleed, before she died aged 77 at East Surrey Hospital in 2024, 'had a lack of understanding of the significance of abdominal pain and vomiting, and had undertaken an incomplete abdominal examination'.
A Department of Health and Social Care source told the Guardian: 'It's clear there's a legitimate problem of patients not knowing who they are seen by, which is their basic right. It is likely the review will make recommendations to address this problem, including changing the titles of PAs.'
A spokesman for the department said: 'The Secretary of State asked Professor Gillian Leng to produce an independent review into PAs and AAs that will provide certainty to patients and staff across the NHS.
'We will consider its findings in full once it has been completed.'
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