I think this post, and the fact that the OP has not returned, suggests something.
I am seeing similar on Facebook. Attacks on ANPs, CNSs, ACPs and other and other senior health practitioners. Comments suggest these stem from the BMA, concerned about Doctor status.
I personally have always been happy to see ANPs. Indeed because of a high risk of melanoma recurring, I pay for six monthly checks to see a specialist nurse at a skin clinic, who I believe is more likely to spot something nasty that a locum GP (or a PA) would. ANPs were also brilliant at helping manage the routine illnesses of old age (UTIs etc) that affected my 90 year old mother and could offer more time and better patient knowledge than a GP as well as home visits when needed.
I think the position is different for PAs who have less experience and training and yet are paid more that junior doctors, soak up scarce training opportunities, and have much more favourable working conditions (no nights, no compulsory rotations to different hospitals, scheduled training time.) DDs classmate who became a PA was nowhere near as academic enough to even attempt a medical school application. It is difficult to see how a sports science degree coupled with a two year course will allow her, even with a lot of handholding, to take the place of a doctor.
What the BMA is not doing is questioning the open immigration policy that is flooding entry level NHS positions will doctors from overseas, forcing expensively trained UK doctors to either leave the profession or to emigrate.
(And indeed the situation is no better for experienced overseas doctors stuck in entry level jobs with little chance of training or promotion, or on fixed term contracts with the prospect of joining the every growing army of under employed locums at the end. Choices once UK residency for the doctor and their dependents is confirmed is to accept the situation, or use the NHS experience to either move to Australia/NZ/Canada or find work in the UK outside medicine.)
The current approach, that doctors are simply numbers and that there is no need to offer retention via a viable career path, is incredibly wasteful. UK trained doctors are valuable as they graduate familiar with UK protocols and NHS procedures, but also cost the UK taxpayer an awful lot to train. They have useful cultural advantages when it comes to things like end of discussions with grieving families, or working with other professionals including nurses. Losing 50% of the year group in order to recruit from abroad or substitute with PAs is bonkers.
We need to be really careful when we use pseudo-doctors. Absolutely fine for a senior nurse experienced in a particular field to see patients, indeed probably better for the patient than a newly qualified doctor in their first week of working in the speciality. But using PAs may save short term money but belated diagnosis costs more and jeopardises patient safety.
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