Physician associates to be renamed to stop them being mistaken for doctors

Physician associates in the NHS will be renamed to stop patients mistaking them for doctors after a review found that their title caused widespread confusion.

Thousands of physician associates who work in hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK take medical histories, examine patients and diagnose illnesses but are not doctors.

However, Prof Gillian Leng, whose government-ordered review is looking into whether they pose a risk to patients’ safety, has concluded that they must be given a new name, so patients they treat are not misled into thinking they have seen a doctor, according to sources with knowledge of her thinking.

Doctors who fear the term has created widespread confusion among the public and risks undermining trust in the medical profession will regard ditching it as a major victory.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is expected to accept Leng’s recommendation and instigate the change, which could lead to physician associates being renamed “physician assistants” or “doctors’ assistants”. She will also specify in her final report, due later this month, that those who perform those roles must make clear to patients that they are assistants, not fully fledged medics.

Physician associates have been implicated in several high-profile patient deaths. Earlier this year, a coroner found that in February 2024 a physician associate (PA) in the A&E at East Surrey hospital had misdiagnosed 77-year-old Pamela Marking as having a nosebleed when she had a small bowel obstruction and hernia that required emergency surgery. She returned to the hospital two days later but she died soon after.

In her prevention of future deaths report the coroner, Karen Henderson, warned that the term “physician associate” was “misleading to the public” and that there was a “lack of public understanding of the role”.

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Source: The Guardian, 4 June 2025

Further reading on the hub:

• Physician associates: What are the patient safety issues? An interview with Asif Qasim
• Partha Kar: We need a pause to assess safety concerns surrounding Physician Associates