CUT-PRICE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW
GPs and hospitals get 3,000 ‘assistants’ with just TWO years’ medical training
THOUSANDS of medics are being trained on the cheap to prop up the NHS.
The physician associates work in GP surgeries and hospitals to diagnose patients, suggest treatment and carry out minor surgery.
They train for just two years and earn only a third of a regular doctor’s salary. Around 300 are already working but the number is expected to hit 3,000 by 2020. At least 1,000 will join the NHS every year after that. And health chiefs have been urging more universities to offer the two-year postgraduate course, open to anyone with a science degree.
The scheme’s supporters say it saves the cash- strapped NHS
money and eases the workload of overstretched GPs and hospital doctors. But critics warn patients could be put at risk because the physician associates lack experience and training.
‘It sounds very much to me like doctors on the cheap,’ said Joyce Robins of Patient Concern. ‘I am really rather knocked back by it. Of course doctors are overrun at the moment but this is worrying and I think patients will be concerned. It depends exactly on what they are doing but their role sounds quite extensive for just two years of training. My heart quakes.’
The role of physician associate, which originated in the US, came to Britain in 2013. Training focuses on general adult medicine in hospital and general practice. It also covers mental health, obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatrics.
As well as diagnosing patients, the associates can analyse test results and carry out minor operations, such as skin cancer and tumour removal and biopsies.
It typically takes around ten years to train as a GP and 14 years to train as a surgeon. The associates are also much cheaper, earning between £30,000 and £40,000 a year – a third of the average salary of a family doctor.
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, had said he wanted to see 1,000 working in the NHS by 2020. Yet around 1,000 are currently in training. And yesterday the Royal College of Physicians said projected figures now indicated more than 3,000 associates would be qualified by 2020 with at least 1,000 a year graduating after that.
Two courses were running in 2013 but there are now 27 and counting. This week, De Montfort University in Leicester became the latest institution to announce it would be running a physician associate studies course for 2017/18.
The course costs £9,000 a year and is open to anyone with a minimum of a 2:1 BSc Hons, or equivalent, in a life sciences or health-related subject such as anatomy, biology, biomedical science, healthcare science, medical science, medical engineering or nursing.
A study has found that associates are just as competent as GPs at diagnosing and managing patients who do not have complex medical problems.
They mainly see younger patients, freeing up the GPs’ time to deal with the elderly with more serious issues.
The Royal College of GPs has said the workers are ‘no substitute’ for family doctors, who are in short supply amid a recruitment crisis.
Jeannie Watkins, of the Faculty of Physician Associates, said: ‘ This is not about doctors on the cheap but about skill mix, redistribution of the medical workload to appropriately trained healthcare professionals, and increased access to services and continuity of care for patients.’