Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of NHS England’s recent guidance on physician associates on patient services.

In response to the Independent Review of Physician Associates and Anaesthesia Associates (the Leng Review), NHS England wrote a letter and published Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to provide guidance and support to the system on the implementation of the recommendations. The FAQs are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/leng-review-nhs-england-faqs-on-actions-for-nhs-organisations.pdf

Whilst individual primary and secondary care providers are responsible for making decisions regarding their workforce, NHS England is actively engaging employers to understand the impact of the Leng Review recommendations. This will inform how we steward and guide the system to further support employers as implementation continues.

As further information to support implementation of the recommendations is available, it will be published at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/response-to-recommendations-from-the-independent-review-of-physician-associates-and-anaesthesia-associates/.