‘Funding and training must be prioritised for GPs’, RCGP chair tells Leng review

Prof Hawthorne. Credit: RCGP/Grainge Photography

By Sarah Lowden

Funding allocations and learning opportunities within general practice “must be prioritised for the training and retention of GPs”, the Royal College of General Practitioners has put in its evidence to the Leng review.

Professor Gillian Leng is leading the independent review into the future of physician associate (PA) and anaesthesia associate (AA) professions.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, RCGP chair, has written to Prof Leng to set out her college’s position.

She reiterated that the RCGP believes “there is no role for PAs in general practice” – a position which came about following a member survey last September that highlighted specific examples of patient safety issues. It led to the college publishing its own advisory guidance for practices on the use of PAs.

Prof Hawthorne said there are “particular risks and challenges inherent in the general practice environment given the need to manage undifferentiated illness”.

There are around 2,000 PAs working in general practice and the RCGP said its guidance “assumes a level of external resourcing for practices in terms of supervision and funding for preceptorships that does not generally exist, and in the absence of which it may be challenging for practices to meet the standards that the guidance recommends”.