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Found 64 results
  1. Content Article
    This study in Surgery aimed to evaluate the association between trauma team function and cardiac arrest in hypotensive trauma patients. Trauma video review was used to collect data from resuscitations of adult hypotensive trauma patients at 19 centres, and 430 patients were included in the study. The results show that better team function is independently associated with a decreased probability of cardiac arrest in trauma patients presenting with hypotension. The authors suggest that trauma team training may improve outcomes in peri-arrest patients.
  2. News Article
    Physician associates should never see ‘undifferentiated’ patients in a GP setting, the BMA has declared in new ‘first of its kind’ guidance. Today, the union has published a national scope of practice laying out how physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AA) should work safely in GP practices and secondary care. According to the BMA, the guidance is different from what it describes as the current ‘piecemeal or fragmented approach’ whereby individual organisations set their own guidelines for how PAs should be supervised. In general practice, the guidance said a GP ‘should first triage’ all patients and ‘decide which ones a PA can see’, suggesting annual health checks as an appropriate contact. The union is also clear that PAs ‘must not make independent management decisions for patients’ and must be clear in all their communications that ‘they are not doctors’. Read full story Source: Pulse, 7 March 2024
  3. Content Article
    Landmark national guidance outlining how MAPs (medical associate professionals) can work safely and effectively in the NHS, has been published by the British Medical Association (BMA). The association has unveiled its report Safe Scope of Practice, which sets out in highly detailed terms the responsibilities of MAPs including PAs (physician associates) and AA (anaesthesia associates). Described as a ‘first of its kind’ the report uses a traffic light-style system to illustrate what clinical duties MAPs should be able to carry out, as well as those responsibilities from which they should be prohibited.  The guidance also sets out six general principles for how MAPs should be deployed in primary and secondary-care settings. The guidance comes as the Government continues to press ahead with its plans to have PAs regulated by the GMC despite intense opposition to such a move from the BMA.
  4. News Article
    Medical leaders support a planned increase in the number of physician associates (PA) in the NHS. But the British Medical Association (BMA) is concerned about a new law allowing the General Medical Council (GMC) to regulate PAs, who must be supervised by a fully qualified doctor. The doctors' union says it blurs the lines between doctors and PAs and could risk patient safety. Two families whose relatives were seen by PAs want the roles defined. The NHS has 3,286 PAs, who assist healthcare teams and are not authorised to prescribe or request scans. PAs and anaesthetic associates (AA) qualify after a funded two-year master's degree. They often have a science undergraduate degree, but that is not a prerequisite. Their role includes taking medical histories, conducting physical examinations and developing treatment plans. Like PAs, AAs are healthcare professionals who work as part of a multidisciplinary team with supervision from a named senior doctor. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said on Tuesday that it welcomes a push to increase the number of PAs in the NHS, but that it is "vital" that there are clear guidelines on how they are deployed. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 March 2024
  5. News Article
    GPs do not ‘face huge amounts of complexity’ and most of their appointments are ‘incredibly straightforward’, according to a former Conservative health minister. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 last week, Lord Bethell defended upcoming legislation that will bring physician associates (PAs) under GMC regulation, which could be struck down by the House of Lords this evening. Both the Doctors’ Association UK and the BMA had previously complained about the lack of debate in Parliament. Discussing the role of PAs on Friday, Lord Bethell said he had not seen ‘any evidence’ of patients being confused about whether they were seeing a doctor or an associate. "GPs don’t face huge amounts of complexity. Most interactions are incredibly straightforward. Certainly my own experience over the last 20 years of going to my GP, it really hasn’t required 10 years of training to deal with my small problems," he said. Lord Bethell added: ‘When they are complex, they should be escalated. But there’s a much wider group of people who have professional training who should be respected, celebrated – they shouldn’t be denigrated, they shouldn’t be in any way patronised by other professionals.’ Read full story Source: Pulse, 26 February 2024
  6. News Article
    Hundreds of frontline NHS staff are treating patients despite being under investigation for their part in an alleged “industrial-scale” qualifications fraud. More than 700 nurses are caught up in a potential scandal, which a former head of the Royal College of Nursing said could put NHS patients at risk. The scam allegedly involves proxies impersonating nurses and taking a key test in Nigeria, which must be passed for them to become registered and allowed to work in the UK. “It’s very, very worrying if … there’s an organisation that’s involving themselves in fraudulent activity, enabling nurses to bypass these tests, or if they are using surrogates to do exams for them because the implication is that we end up in the UK with nurses who aren’t competent,” said Peter Carter, the ex-chief executive of the RCN and ex-chair of three NHS trusts. He praised the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for taking action against those involved “to protect the quality of care and patient safety and the reputation of nurses”. Nurses coming to work in the UK must be properly qualified, given nurses’ role in administering drugs and intravenous infusions and responding to emergencies such as a cardiac arrest, Carter added. Forty-eight of the nurses are already working as nurses in the NHS because the NMC is unable to rescind their admission to its register, which anyone wanting to work as a nurse or midwife in Britain has to be on. It has told them to retake the test to prove their skills are good enough to meet NHS standards but cannot suspend them. The 48 are due to face individual hearings, starting in March, at which they will be asked to explain how they apparently took and passed the computer-based test (CBT) of numeracy and clinical knowledge taken at the Yunnik test centre in the city of Ibadan. The times recorded raised suspicions because they were among the fastest the nursing regulator had ever seen. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 February 2024
  7. News Article
    Physician associates have attempted to illegally prescribe drugs at dozens of NHS trusts and missed life-threatening diagnoses, a dossier claims. Doctors working across the country claim patients’ lives have been put at risk by physician associates (PAs) who they say have failed to respond appropriately to medical emergencies – alleging more than 70 instances of patient harm and “near misses”. The Telegraph has seen responses from more than 600 doctors to a survey on PAs run by Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), a campaign group. The data suggest that at over half of England’s hospital trusts, doctors are being replaced by PAs on the rota, despite associates only completing a two-year postgraduate course and having no legal right to prescribe. A spokesperson from the Department of Health said their role “is to support doctors, not replace them”. The Telegraph has interviewed more than a dozen surveyed doctors, as well as other clinicians worried about patient safety. At Dudley Group NHS Trust, one junior doctor said a PA had missed an “obvious heart attack” on an ECG, having “just signed it as if it was normal”. A clinician in primary care alleged PAs repeatedly misdiagnosed a patient’s metastatic cancer as muscle ache – despite blood results that were “tantamount” to a cancer diagnosis. They said: “The patient could have been saved eight months of pain; their life could have been prolonged.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 27 January 2024
  8. News Article
    NHS England said it had opened a tender worth £16 million to support provider organisations as they seek to improve their digital maturity and get electronic patient records in place by the end of March 2026. NHSE said its frontline digitisation programme is working with NHS secondary care trusts providing acute specialist, community, mental health and ambulance services to help them reach a minimum level of digital capability as defined by the Digital Capabilities Framework. To fulfil this ambition, NHSE is seeking a partner to create an experienced, multi-skilled, rapid response intervention service, also known as a Tiger Teams service, capable of supporting EPR delivery across England. This service will be an expansion to an existing comprehensive support offer available to providers, designed to support the national demand for resource, expertise, and information necessary to successfully rollout EPRs. NHSE said: “Often during EPR delivery, there is a requirement for either a planned, or unplanned, specific, time-bound skill set, capable of providing a set of deliverables, problem rectification or other specialist intervention for an element of the EPR Programme. “Trusts are finding it increasingly challenging to obtain good quality, skilled short-term resources, both from the recruitment and contingent labour market.” Read full story Source: Digital Health, 22 January 2024
  9. Content Article
    The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh has released a statement on their position on the specific role of the physician associate.
  10. News Article
    Senior doctors are urging MPs to reject government plans to regulate “physician associates”, whose growing use in the NHS has divided the medical profession. The British Medical Association has said that allowing the General Medical Council (GMC) to regulate physician associates (PAs) would “blur the lines” between doctors and non-doctors. Many medics are opposed to the increased use of PAs, who they fear patients will wrongly see as doctors, even though they do not have a medical degree. They have expressed concern that letting the GMC – which regulates doctors – regulate PAs from April, as ministers plan, is “potentially dangerous” because it could confuse the public, diminish the status of doctors, and leave patients at risk of being treated by someone without the appropriate skills. The BMA is running advertisements in the Guardian and on social media asking MPs on a Commons committee examining the plan to vote against it when they consider it on Thursday. “PAs are not the same as doctors, and blurring the lines can have tragic consequences for patients who think they have seen a doctor when they have not,” the adverts say. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 January 2024
  11. News Article
    The NHS and a local council have been told to urgently find a home for a 28-year-old autistic man who is facing psychological and physical abuse within a mental health hospital, after an independent review of his care. Nicholas Thornton has autism and learning disabilities and is currently being held in the Rochford mental health unit, in Essex, after a decade of being locked away in places not able to care for him adequately. Now an independent safeguarding review into his care provided at the Essex hospital has ordered the local authority and NHS to find him a home in the community because his relationship with hospital staff has become so bad he is facing psychological and physical harm. He is one of the 2,045 people with learning disabilities and autism trapped within inpatient units across England. Mr Thornton has been in the unit, run by the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT), since May this year. He is not under a mental health section, nor does he need mental health treatment, but he is unable to leave because the local authority has not agreed on a place into which he can be discharged. EPUT is currently facing a public inquiry probing the deaths of 2,000 patients following multiple reviews since 2016 from coroners, the police and health ombudsman criticising the care within the hospital. A safeguarding report into Mr Thornton’s situation, seen by The Independent and Channel Four News, revealed staff working in the Rochford hospital told investigators they cannot adequately care for Mr Thornton themselves as they are not trained in supporting patients with autism. Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 December 2023
  12. News Article
    Many people are deeply confused about the growing number of “physician associates” in the NHS and wrongly assume they are doctors, research suggests. Around 4,000 physician associates work in the NHS in England. Ministers and health chiefs plan to increase the figure to 10,000 to help plug widespread gaps in the NHS workforce. However, there is widespread confusion among the public about their role and relationship with fully trained medics, according to a survey commissioned by the British Medical Association (BMA). A quarter of the representative sample of 2,009 people erroneously believed that a physician associate was a doctor, while a fifth made the same mistake about “physician assistants”. Many respondents thought that a physician associate was more senior than a junior doctor, even though only the latter have a medical degree. The expansion of physician associates has prompted a backlash by grassroots medics. They fear patients will be misled into thinking they have seen a doctor despite physician associates not having the same skills and training. The government has moved to try to quell criticism of physician associates by legislating to ensure they are regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC). Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 December 2023
  13. News Article
    Women in labour at a London maternity unit deemed “inadequate” were left alone with unsupervised support workers who were not given any guidance, an NHS safety watchdog has found. In a scathing report of North Middlesex Hospital’s maternity services, the Care Quality Commission also found examples of delays to induction of birth for women, and one case of a woman with a still-born baby who was left waiting for the unit to call her in for an induction. Inspectors have downgraded the maternity unit from “good” to the lowest possible rating “inadequate” following an inspection earlier this year. Staff reportedly told inspectors they felt they were “criticised” or “bullied” when reporting safety incidents within the unit. “We heard that the criticism or bullying was worse if the incident reported was relative to other staff and their perceived behaviours,” the report said. There was also evidence the hospital was not recording the severity of safety incidents correctly for example two “never events”, which are among the highest category incidents, were categorised as “low harm”. Other findings included women and babies came to harm as the hospitals did not follow standards to language interpretation despite covering a higher than average minority ethnic population. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 December 2023
  14. Content Article
    There’s been much discussion in the press and on social media about the role of physician associates and anaesthetic associates. Who exactly are they, and how are they trained? The Department of Health and Social Care says that they’re “trained in the medical model”—but what does this actually mean? Helen Salisbury gives her thoughts in this BMJ opinion piece.
  15. News Article
    Health Education England (HEE) and NHS England have warned BMA that its stance on medical associate professionals (MAPs) is impacting NHS relationships and patient confidence. HEE published an open letter to the BMA in response to the union’s call to halt recruitment of MAPs – which includes physician associates (PAs) working in general practice – until regulation is in place. The BMA Council passed a motion calling for a halt to recruitment of MAPs two weeks ago, on the grounds of patient safety. This followed a previous motion to that effect from its GP committee for England earlier this month. Proposing to bring forward a planned meeting with the BMA to discuss the matter, HEE’s letter said: "This continuing public discourse around MAPs is impacting relations between your members and their MAP colleagues, the health and wellbeing of MAPs already working in the NHS, and potentially the confidence of patients." HEE chief workforce, training and education officer Dr Navina Evans and NHS England medical director Sir Stephen Powis argued in the letter that evidence shows "MAPs are safe", and that they "increase the breadth of skill, capacity and flexibility of teams" and reduce workload pressure on other clinicians. ‘Any issues of patient safety identified resulting from MAPs ‘must be addressed in the same way we would any other profession’, the letter added. Read full story Source: Pulse, 27 November 2023
  16. Content Article
    Following on from the care failures highlighted in the 2021 report, 'No one's listening', the Sickle Cell Society have published a new report taking a deeper look at sickle cell nursing care. The findings show the need for vastly more resources, training and support in this critical area of care. The report highlights that not only is no-one listening, but that lives are still being put at risk.
  17. News Article
    Medics who are not qualified doctors have been used in senior roles at Birmingham Children's Hospital. Physician associates (PAs) have worked as the responsible clinician in the liver unit with a consultant on call. The RCPCH said it had heard the concerns of its members and the need for a clearly defined physician associate roles and training pathways. The doctors' union, the British Medical Association, called for a delay on recruitment of PAs until the group was properly regulated and supervised. The trust running the hospital said the physician associates did not work in isolation and only did the role with the right level of experience. Introduced in 2003, the PA role involved supporting doctors so they could deal with more complex patient needs. Usually, physician associates have a science degree and do a two-year post-graduate qualification. They are not doctors and are not allowed to prescribe drugs. The role is currently unregulated with the government planning legislation for regulations to be introduced before the end of 2024. PAs have worked at Birmingham Children's Hospital for 10 years but the BBC saw rotas which show them on tier two - normally a rota for senior doctors called registrars. PAs were not allowed to work unsupervised overnight and there were consultants on call at all times to offer advice, they said. Dr Fiona Reynolds, the trust's chief medical officer, insisted the safety and quality of care offered to children, young people and families remained a priority for everyone at the trust and would not be compromised. "Although small in number, [the PAs] skills and dedication to offering the best for our patients complements that of their colleagues in all fields - all of which are hugely valued by our trust," she added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 November 2023
  18. News Article
    The BMA has called for an immediate halt to the recruitment of Medical Associate Professionals (MAPs) in the UK including Physician Associates (PAs) and Anaesthetic Associates (AAs). Doctors from across the UK who make up the BMA’s UK Council have passed a Motion which calls for the moratorium on the grounds of patient safety. They want the pause to last until the government and NHS put guarantees in place to make sure that MAPs are properly regulated and supervised. The move follows a number of recent cases in which patients have not always known they were being treated by a physician associate and tragically have come to harm. Professor Phil Banfield, BMA chair of council, said: “Doctors across the UK are getting more and more worried about the relentless expansion of the medical associate professions, brought into sharp focus by terrible cases of patients suffering serious harm after getting the wrong care from MAPs. Now is the time for the Government to listen before it is too late. We are clear: until there is clarity and material assurances about the role of MAPs, they should not be recruited in the NHS. “We have always been clear that MAPs can play an important part in NHS teams, and doctors will continue to value, respect and support individual staff they work with. But MAPs roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined. We are seeing increased instances of MAPs encroaching on the role of doctors; they are not doctors, do not have a medical degree and do not have the extensive training and depth of knowledge that doctors do. As doctors, we are worried that patients and public do not understand what this could mean in respect of the level of experience and expertise in care they receive. “The General Medical Council is the exclusive regulator of doctors in the UK. Adding staff who are not doctors and do not have a medical degree to the GMC register brings into question the competence and qualification of the whole medical profession. The Government may view this as a price worth paying for a shortcut to solving the workforce crisis they have presided over. We know otherwise. GMC regulation of MAPs will only add to the confusion and uncertainty that patients face. “Ministers may hope that by using secondary legislation, which may not even require the vote of MPs, they can avoid raising the alarm. But patients want doctors to remain doctors, regulated by a dedicated body, and they have a right to have confidence in the expert medical care they receive. There must be no doubt that when a patient goes to see a doctor, they are going to see a doctor. This blurring of roles and the confusion caused to patients must stop now.” Source: BMA, 16 November 2023
  19. Content Article
    Recently, in the wake of growing unrest, plummeting morale, and industrial action, doctors have created an increasingly hostile narrative towards physician associates (PAs) on social media and raised repeated concerns about their impact on patient safety and training opportunities. In this BMJ opinion piece, David Oliver looks at the recent history to understand how we got here and discusses why we need a mature debate about these matters otherwise interprofessional solidarity and multidisciplinary team working could be harmed by the degree of vitriol and resentment.
  20. News Article
    Doctors are warning that patient safety is being put at risk as podiatrists and pharmacists replace GPs “on the cheap”. Dozens of family doctors have contacted The Telegraph claiming that talk of a GP shortage is “a big lie” and that they are being replaced by less qualified, cheaper staff, in a “crisis”. Documents seen by The Telegraph show staff including podiatrists, pharmacists and physician associates being used in lieu of GPs to diagnose and treat patients with conditions they are not trained in. In the most extreme cases, poorly children with viral infections, asthma-related issues and concerns about menstruation have been seen and diagnosed by a podiatrist – a healthcare professional trained exclusively to care for feet. It is not clear what happened to any of the patients afterwards, or if their parents were aware they had seen a podiatrist rather than a doctor. One GP said it was “a matter of patient safety” and the notion of “everything being supervised” did not work at a GP practice like it does in hospitals. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 4 November 2023
  21. News Article
    The safety of people with learning disabilities in England is being compromised when they are admitted to hospital, a watchdog says. The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) reviewed the care people receive and said there were "persistent and widespread" risks. It warned staff are not equipped with the skills or support to meet the needs of patients with learning disabilities. The watchdog launched its review after receiving a report about a 79-year-old who died following a cardiac arrest two weeks after being admitted to hospital. As part of its investigation, HSSIB also looked at the care provided in other places to people with learning disabilities. It warned systems in place to share information about them were unreliable, and that there was an inconsistency in the availability of specialist teams - known as learning disability liaison services - that were in place in hospitals to support general staff. It also said general staff had insufficient training - although it did note a national mandatory training programme is currently being rolled out. Senior investigator Clare Crowley said: "If needs are not met, it can cause distress and confusion for the patient and their families and carers, and raises the risk of poor health outcomes and, in the worst cases, harm." Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 November 2023
  22. Content Article
    The aim of this investigation and report is to help improve the inpatient care of adults with a known learning disability in acute hospital settings. It focuses on people referred urgently for hospital admission from a community setting, such as a person’s home or residential home. In undertaking this investigation, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) looked to explore the factors affecting: The sharing of information about people with a learning disability and their reasonable adjustment needs following admission to an acute hospital. How ward-base staff are supported to delivery person-centred care to people with a learning disability.
  23. News Article
    Staff without medical training who fill gaps in the NHS workforce must tell patients they are “not a doctor” when introducing themselves, under new guidance. The advice has been issued to “physician associates” (PAs), a type of clinical role that requires less training than doctors receive, amid a row over their use in the NHS. PAs complete a two-year postgraduate qualification, but no medical degree, and can diagnose and treat patients. They can work in A&E or GP surgeries. NHS England has set out plans to expand the number of PAs to deal with staff shortages, with a workforce of 10,000 PAs wanted over the next decade. The plan has been met with opposition from doctors’ leaders, who say the growing use of PAs instead of fully qualified doctors is leading to missed diagnoses and deaths. Guidance published by the Faculty of Physician Associates, a part of the Royal College of Physicians, said that PAs must not mislead patients into thinking they are doctors. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 6 October 2023
  24. News Article
    The medical regulator has told NHS England to ‘directly tackle’ a perception there is a plan to replace doctors with physician associates amid an ‘intense’ debate about their future. General Medical Council chief executive Charlie Massey wants NHS England and health systems in the devolved nations to address several issues surrounding the expansion of medical associate roles. This follows intense debate over recent weeks, including multiple media reports of safety incidents where the involvement of physicians and anaesthesia associates has been questioned. The debate has been partially prompted by ambitions in the long-term workforce plan to increase their numbers, and the impact this would have on post-graduate medical training. Last week almost 90% cent of Royal College of Anaesthetists members voted to pause the rollout of anaesthesia associates, after an extraordinary general meeting. This prompted NHSE leaders to stress to trusts that associates should be working within established guidelines and have appropriate supervision. In response, Mr Massey has written to NHSE, calling for it to: “Directly tackle the perception that there is a plan for the health services to ‘replace’ doctors with PAs or AAs by convening and leading a system-wide discussion on an agreed vision for these roles.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 25 October 2023
  25. News Article
    You might not have heard of a ‘physician associate’ - and that’s not your fault. They probably won’t tell you. A physician associate walks and talks like a doctor, but they are no replacement for one. To become a physician associate you need to complete a two-year postgraduate course or three-year apprenticeship. But despite much less learning than the five years a junior doctor must undergo to be qualified, they are often paid more than them. Which is why the government’s plan to flood the NHS with 10,000 more of them over the next 15 years doesn’t make any sense. There’s certainly no money-saving aspect. This is simply another corner-cutting exercise to quickly plug gaps in a struggling NHS that will put patients at risk. Far from saving doctors work (their original purpose), they often create more. Physician associates are unregulated so cannot be held accountable for their mistakes, meaning doctors must recheck any critical decisions they make. Critical decisions are made quite frequently in hospitals. But they’re not just overstretching doctors and creating more work; they’re harming patients. A recent Daily Mail investigation has found brain bleeds misdiagnosed as inconsequential headaches and lung disease mistaken for a chest infection. Doctors say they are “increasingly concerned” by this. Read full story Source: LBC, 16 October 2023
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