Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department is making on introducing statutory regulation of physician associates in the NHS; and if he will make a statement.

The Government is committed to supporting the development of a modern health and care workforce as part of the continuing drive to provide safe, accessible and high quality care for patients and service users.

The extension of statutory regulation to groups currently unregulated will only be considered where there is a solid body of evidence demonstrating a level of risk to the public which cannot be addressed through other means of assurance, including Accredited Voluntary Registers.

As my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced in his speech to NHS Providers in November 2016, the Department is developing proposals for a public consultation to consider whether physician associates should be regulated.