Streeting orders review into role of physician associates in NHS

Wes Streeting has ordered a review of what physician associates do in the NHS, amid growing alarm in the medical profession about patient safety.

- Denis Campbell

It will examine the safety of their roles and how patients should be made aware that, despite their titles and ability to diagnose illness, they are not doctors and can only perform certain tasks.

The health secretary has appointed Prof Gillian Leng, an expert in evidence-based healthcare and the former chief executive ofthe National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to lead the review.

About 3,500 physician associates and about 100 equivalents who work in anaesthesia - called anaesthetic associates - are already working in hospitals and GP surgeries in England. Taken together the number of "medical associate professionals" (MAPs), as they are known in the NHS, is due to treble to about 10,000 by 2037 under the service's long-term workforce plan.

Physician associates can take a patient's medical history, conduct physical examinations, analyse test results, diagnose illnesses and help draw up the plan for managing the person's condition. They do two years of training, far less than a doctor.