Animals treated better than humans by the NHS

[Letsgetouttahere2023]

Scary cheap money saving by the nhs!!

Would you be happy to be treated by a physicians assistant; someone with no medical qualifications! (Link to article below)

YABU - Yes I'd happily be treated by a "physican assistant"- someone with no medical degree and just a few weeks / months training

YANBU - Medcial care should be performed by someone with a medical degree and relevant post graduate training and exams, ie a Doctor

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/30/animals-treated-better-than-humans-say-doctors-row/

Anyone currently needing an operation on the NHS is dicing with destiny to be fair, but yes of course its worrying that instead of investing in expanding specialist training numbers for qualified doctors the government is determined to fill the gaps (that they've made) with lesser qualified and less able made up roles. Its wild that PAs don't have a regulator, can't prescribe or order scans yet are being let loose in all sorts of scope creepin roles and taking opportunities away from doctors. So many can't get into specialist training due to bottlenecks but expanding these and sorting out other issues would do wonders for the shortages.

This is what happens when people want free healthcare, don't often value it but don't want it to cost too much to the taxpayers either.

And when Dr's make demands for more money and go on strike for long periods.

Alternatives have to be found and what will ultimately happen is a healthcare system which is no longer free.

Agree with @Meloncocomelon . The NHS can't cope with the ageing population. We need to stop expecting healthcare to be free and start looking into ways of it being part funded (like many European countries already do).

Your post is very misleading. Have you looked at the length of the postgraduate degree?

“A few weeks/month’s training”

No. Just no. Educate yourself before spreading a load of misinformed nonsense, undermining public trust in an entire profession.

It's not free is it, its free at point of use. PAs get paid a lot more than a newly qualified doctor and it actually takes a fair few years for earnings to 'catch up'; why on earth are lesser qualified people with less responsibilities and less capabilities being paid more? Its very clearly a government agenda, same as their stance on the strikes- they've paid more in cover than they would have for FPR for a year and beyond. I would bet a million pounds that if any of them require an operation they'd demand an actual doctor.

Yes exactly, de skilling and diluting the medical workforce is purley a money saving exercise. it's all fine till it's not fine. Then your health is ruined forever, you've died during your surgery, or you've never woken up from your anaesthetic. Sounds great!

Your op reads like you're a militant junior doctor who thinks you can influence the uncultured masses because you're the brightest and the best. Honestly, we're all capable of googling how long it takes to train in this profession. A science degree or similar (like nursing) first, then a conversion degree.

The PA postgraduate is 2 years but the courses they're being funded to go on (that doctors have to pay for...) are only a few weeks in length. That doesn't compare at all to the training a doctor has by the time they're let loose in these procedures.

That's good because only an actual doctor would be operating. What's your point?

Exactly. If the training was the same, they would be doctors.

They are not.

Then why are they being sent on funded courses then? Why are there numerous examples of them performing functions they should be nowhere near? PAs should be regulated with clear scopes of practice yet they're not.

Exactly @Pugfin

There seems to be an intentional blurring of what their scope is, and as per pp anyone who questions it is labelled as "militant doctor", just bizarre.

It's good though, the more people who are happy to be treated by PAs the more doctors for the rest of us.

It's free to the consumer. Unless you know of people being billed by the NHS?

Don’t be disingenuous. You know full well the OP was inferring in the opening post that PAs only have a few weeks/months of training, which is wildly inaccurate and irresponsible.

PAs are not masquerading as doctors. We need a multi-skilled, dynamic workforce to meet the challenges of the health service in its current state and PAs are part of that.

This has been happening for years with teachers, who are being replaced by “unqualified teachers”. And we already have GP appointments being replaced by the nurse. It’s very difficult to see a qualified GP unless you’re able to wait a couple of weeks. Now they want “unqualified surgeons” too. The mind boggles!

This is inaccurate scaremongering.

My niece is a physician's assistant. She has a Bachelors(1st) taking 3 years, in Bio-medical science and a masters (distinction) taking 2 years in PA Studies followed by a year's experience in the renal department of a large NHS trust.

She works within a team lead by a renal consultant, focusing on ward-based care.

Not 'a few weeks/months training'!

The point is that not an actual doctor will be doing the anaesthetics ... unlike an actual doctor who completed several additional years of training in anaesthetics.

I guess things don't often go wrong so hopefully you won't be unlucky

I am a doctor and there is an argument here on both sides

PA training and Dr training are not equivalent at all and they will never have the depth and breadth of knowledge of a doctor.
After a two year conversion course a PA is fully qualified, and may well only have spent a couple of weeks doing the speciality they work in- say cardiology for an example.

After five years medicine a doctor is ‘provisionally registered’ for a year, and then does an additional foundation training year, and then after that starts on a training programme In a speciality. To complete training in the speciality they also have to self fund exams through the royal college of their specialty. So for example I’m 10 years post graduation, have done my royal college exams, but I’m still not yet a consultant.

Its just incomparable.

However, there is a crisis in recruitment and retention in the NHS. If a PA can pick up more of the administrative or process driven clinical work - for example in A&E following a suspected blood clot protocol and ordering bloods, or doing discharge summaries, then it frees up doctors to do more complex medicine.

The danger is when PAs come with egos and don’t know what they don’t know…
I’ve worked with some amazing ones and some very dangerous ones.
I’ve worked with crap doctors but the difference is doctors are tightly regulated ina. Way PAs are not.

For minor things no issue whatsoever. Probably a safer pair of hands than many F2s. Undoubtedly also significantly less cocky and self important.

Stupid right wing clickbait.

The Tories are actively trying to destroy trust in the NHS because they want to sell it. It's just about money and greed. The Tories know they're going to get kicked out so they want to sell everything they can get their hands on first to line their own pockets as much as possible. The Tories are astonishingly corrupt - look how many people died because the Tories gave medical contracts and PPE contracts to mates with literally zero experience for kickbacks.

That's why the Tory papers are pushing the anti-NHS line so hard. To make it easier to sell.

PAs aren't doing operations or anaesthetics though. They are doing consultations for those things not necessary for a doctor's input and are trained accordingly.

You know its not just the duration of training that makes a doctor.. a doctor, right?

Otherwise anyone off the street could go off and study for 6 years, and suddenly theyre a "doctor"? Lol. No.

The entrance to medical school is mad competitive, only the very smartest get through then there are countless hurdles throughout medical school meaning of this very brightest group - the best come out the other end having been trained to a high standard. Then there is foundation training and speciality training (most doctors take additional years before/during/after) all in all probably taking around 10 years of "training" beyond their 5-6 medical degree during which they are working and taking immensely difficult postgraduate exams.

I don't personally know anybody in healthcare who would want to be treated by a PA instead of a qualified doctor (and this includes PAs themselves!)

I doubt whether, on the NHS at least, you will get a choice whether you are seen by a PA or a doctor