You’re correct. They do a 2 year masters course rather than a 5/6 year medical degree. They also don’t sit postgraduate exams like doctors do or do formal training like we do. They are often favoured by hospital consultants for training and opportunities as unlike junior doctors they don’t rotate to other hospitals. This impacts upon doctors training.
They also don’t have the formative on call experience from out of hours on call shifts all doctors do early in their career. For example most have not done night shifts as they cannot prescribe so you cannot really have them independently covering wards alone at night.
They can be useful in a narrow defined role, but most get bored of basic tasks assisting doctors and push for career progression. Lots could have been doctors but became PAs instead. They have a better work life balance and the course is shorter.
I’ve worked with some great PAs, but many don’t understand the limits of their short training and their complete absence of formal post university training that doctors undertake.
A GP has worked as a doctor for 2 years (foundation programme, long hours). Then done a minimum of three years training as a GP (1 year hospital specialties, 2 years GP) and passed royal college or general practitioners exams. Most GPs have done other specialties before or they locummed for a few years before becoming GPs. So it’s common they’ve been doctors for much longer than 5 years when they qualify.
So a PA is very different from a GP and the tories plan to use them to patch up the nhs is terrifying.