Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many physician associates worked in general practice in the latest period for which figures are available.

NHS Digital publishes data on general practice staff by type: headcount and full-time equivalent. The latest publication with data for March 2016 was published in September 2016 and includes data on physician associates:

http://content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB21772/nhs-staff-Sept-2015-March-2016-gene-prac-tab.xlsx

These statistics are classified as experimental as they are new official statistics that are undergoing evaluation. This is in keeping with the United Kingdom’s Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Official Statistics.