Doctors call for scope of practice and patient safety review for APs

Jeff Moore/PA

By Daniel Pye

Doctors' representatives have voted for advanced practitioners to have a scope of practice to avoid creating a "two-tier" system in healthcare.

Delegates at the British Medical Association’s annual representative meeting (ARM) backed a motion calling for “clearly defined limits of practice and requirements for supervision and oversight”.

These should be developed as part of a government review into the roles’ impact on patient safety and workforce development, doctors said.

Failing to implement such changes could lead to a system where poorer patients see advanced practitioners (APs) and those who can afford private treatment see doctors, the conference in Brighton heard.

The BMA has expressed increasing concern in recent months that patient safety is being put at risk by the use of APs, who are nurses and allied health professionals with a postgraduate degree, on doctors’ rotas.

At the ARM, Dr Samuel Parker from the BMA north east regional council accused the UK government of “investing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into a programme of doctor substitution”.