Educate Yourself it May Save Your Life

[Onthepage]

Please read the following link, this is the governments very questionable and dangerous solution to lack of medically qualified staff. These people are NOT medically qualified, please make sure you know who is treating you or your loved ones it could just save your or your loved ones life!
it is your right to know who is treating you and to make that choice.
This is the governments attempt to pull the wool over your eyes by spinning PA’s and AA’s as something they most definitely are not. They even get paid nearly twice as much as a qualified junior doctor who is responsible for them. Do you think that is reasonable, if you agree with me it’s YANBU!
https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-calls-for-immediate-pause-on-recruitment-of-physician-associates

Not quite the same, but my GP surgery has an unhelpful habit of forcing you to see a Nurse Practitioner over a GP.

Which as a triage or minor symptoms situation is fine.

But when you present something more serious it is useless.

My DH was brushed off when he called with the MH issue as he seemed "okay enough". Leading to a lot more suffering before he got help.

I have an auto immune condition that I was totally fobbed off about by the NP who refused to see me and would only speak over the phone. It took me over 2 years to go back to get answers after she offered me antidepressants and a patronising tone for my "unexplainable" symptoms.

From a patient perspective, if I felt like I needed a Dr again, I'd trust my instincts and know that I actually need a Dr.

It happened to me. He said "I am a physician".
I had been vomiting blood. He said "I could send you for an endoscopy but they are very unpleasant so we'll just see if it happens again".
When I finally saw a GP she referred me urgently.
So I feel that PA misrepresented himself and failed to take the appropriate action.

@Onthepage in exactly what capacity is your extensive NHS experience?
Presumably not in a regulated profession, or your regulators social media guidance would inform you that post such as this which seek to incite distrust and alarm amongst the population are unwise.

There are legitimate concerns around emerging roles and the quality of supervision/scope of practice that is needed.

There are also orchestrated attempts by some areas of the medical profession to create and fuel public outcry, perhaps with some good intent, but also with an element of protectionism and not wanting 'others' in the club. Look at the appalling racism, classism and sexism in medicine before assuming an altruistic motive.

In all contacts with healthcare professionals you are at risk of someone overestimating their skills, knowledge or ability. To rely purely on holding a medical degree as the indicator of safe care is naive.

But not studying medicine for five years. It’s a two year training course following a normal science degree.

i was actually offered a place on a PA course over a decade ago when it was really new and there were no fees and a 10k a year bursary. I was a qualified midwife. Everyone else on the interview day were either bio chem or biology graduates. So while I’m sure they had a good knowledge of biology and chemistry I’m not sure how good their knowledge of different illnesses and symptoms were. My interviewers were excited to interview me and said I was the first person they’d interviewed with actual health care experience.

i turned down the offer. I wasn’t sure about the lack of autonomy and just had real reservations about long term job security. The govt like this sort of thing on a whim and then scrap it. My local hospital trust still don’t employ any so I’d have struggled to get a job so glad I didn’t.

i don’t see why the govt/trusts don’t train more Advanced Nursing Practitioners. Who will already have three year nursing degree, years of nursing experience, do their ANP training and can do a prescribing course. I think a decent experienced ANP can be as good as a junior doctor

I agree with the BMA that these roles need to be more clearly defined and it's right that they call out the issues in recruitment, both in PAs, and that numbers for medical professionals in training and recruitment are far too low for the UK's needs and PAs should not be used to plug those gaps.

That said, I think the emotive language of 'this may save your life' and acting like there is a clear divide between GPs safe, PAs unsafe is unhelpful. Yes, there are cases of PAs acting horrible consequences -- there are also cases of GPs, nurses, midwives doing the same and major issues within the system on handling cases of abuse of patients. Vigilance has not been strong in many parts of the NHS for a long while and the issues of PAs working beyond the role they were intended for is another symptom of that lack of vigilance needed.

Surely the theory behind using a PA is to free up the doctors from the more “manual” tasks like Cannulation, Catheters etc… so they can spend more time doing things like Patient Assessments. I think this is a great idea. They are surely a great addition to the work force when appropriately used.

More regulation is not a bad thing but I think spreading the idea that seeing a PA is dangerous and they are all basically agents of malpractice is really stupid.

out of curiosity where do you stand on acute settings with HCAs or Phlebotomists who only have to have GCSEs and are trained on the job?

If that’s all it was they’d just use the Band 2 HCsW, most of the ones at the hospital where I am can cannulate, take blood, do obs, remove catheters…..not sure if they place catheters but certainly the nurses can.

So their intended role must be wider.

Plus they work in some GP surgeries doing to all intents and purposes the same role as a GP. But being “supervised” and not being able to prescribe.