Responding to the outcome of the GMC’s physician associate (PA) and anaesthesia associate (AA) consultation, Prof Phil Banfield, chair of BMA Council said:

“The GMC, the medical regulator, should never have been made the regulator of non-medical occupations like PAs. Nevertheless, it had the opportunity with this consultation and in the months since to show both patients and doctors it could carry out this role responsibly. It has not taken that opportunity.

“A regulator should be able to set out what these associate roles can and cannot do.  However in direct opposition to the views of doctors and patients, the GMC continues to believe that those decisions – how and what PAs can do - should be determined locally by each hospital trust. This will continue the postcode lottery of local variation that has already led to tragic patient safety incidents, including deaths.

“Scope of practice was deliberately excluded from this consultation. Yet in July, only two months after the consultation closed for submissions, the coroner’s report into the tragic death of Susan Pollitt highlighted concerns that there was no national framework as to how PAs should be trained, supervised and deemed competent. Surely that should have been the signal to announce such nationally agreed safe working parameters – if not in this consultation report, then as soon as possible.

“In a week’s time PAs and AAs will be under GMC regulation, but the GMC, NHS England, and Royal Colleges all continue to point to the other as the body to set what these associates can and cannot do at work. The buck must stop somewhere. At the very least, while the Leng Review is underway, we urge all NHS trusts to implement the BMA’s safe scope of practice to protect patients.

“Patients deserve better than this cavalier approach to regulation. They deserve a medical regulator that listens to the medical profession. Professor Leng will have much to consider in her review which demands unsparing scrutiny of government, NHS England and the GMC for their role in this debacle.” 

Notes to editors

The BMA safe scope of practice for MAPs can be found here https://www.bma.org.uk/media/tkcosjt1/maps-scope-of-practice2024-web.pdf

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