Health Professionals: Regulation
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he supports regulation of Medical Associate Professionals by the General Medical Council.
Answered by Karin Smyth
Medical associate professions are valued members of the multi-disciplinary team and contribute to patient care. Regulation of Physician Associates (PAs) and Anaesthesia Associates (AAs) will begin in December 2024. The General Medical Council (GMC) will set standards of practice, education, and training, and operate fitness-to-practice procedures to ensure that PAs and AAs can be held to account if serious concerns are raised.
NHS England has issued clear guidance on the deployment of PAs and AAs in the National Health Service, which describes the expectations of how organisations providing NHS care should deploy PAs and AAs so that they can contribute to the delivery of safe and effective healthcare, in a supportive environment. This guidance is available at the following link:
Ahead of regulation, the GMC has also published advice for doctors who supervise AAs and PAs, alongside updating its clinical governance handbook to set out how organisations that employ AAs and PAs should ensure appropriate deployment and supervision.
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