BMA criticises proposals for PAs to see some undifferentiated patients

Getty/sturti

By Daniel Pye

New proposals allowing physician assistants to see undifferentiated patients under strict criteria would allow the NHS to use the role “dangerously”, the British Medical Association has said.

A draft clinical protocol by Professor Gillian Leng has said PAs can see patients who have not been previously clinically assessed so long as they are working within a consultant-led multidisciplinary team and a doctor makes the final diagnosis.

But the medical union pushed back strongly against the plans, stating that PAs must not assess, diagnose or manage undifferentiated patients.

The union denied the proposed protocol constitutes safe working, accusing the document of being inaccurate and “doomed to repeat the same mistakes”.

Leng developed the protocol, intended to standardise PA practice nationally, as a follow up to her review on how the workforce operates in the NHS last year.

This followed controversy over how a non-medically trained workforce manages direct patient care, including concerns about patient harm and deaths after PAs saw undifferentiated patients.