The British Medical Association’s Tom Dolphin has said allowing physician assistants to assess patients with undiagnosed conditions would be irresponsible and lacks sufficient evidence to be safe.
Tom Dolphin, of the British Medical Association (BMA), has publicly warned that deploying physician assistants (PAs) — healthcare professionals who are not fully qualified doctors — to see patients whose conditions have not yet been identified or diagnosed would be irresponsible. He made the comments in response to ongoing debate about the expanding role of PAs within the NHS.
Dolphin also raised concerns about the supervision arrangements currently in place for PAs, saying existing guidelines are too vague to properly address the patient safety issues that have been raised repeatedly by doctors and medical bodies.
The role of physician assistants has drawn scrutiny across the medical profession. PAs work alongside doctors but their scope of practice — and how closely they must be supervised — has been contested, with critics arguing that without tighter rules, patients may not always realise they are not being seen by a qualified doctor.
The BMA’s position is that current evidence does not support PAs taking on undifferentiated cases, where a patient arrives with symptoms that have not yet been assessed or given a working diagnosis. That first stage of assessment, the BMA argues, carries particular risk.
Dolphin’s warning was published by the BMJ, the peer-reviewed medical journal.
Anyone with concerns about their care or treatment can contact NHS 111 for advice, or speak to their GP practice directly.
Source: @bmj_latest
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