Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what advice they are giving to GP surgeries on the recruitment of new physician associates in the light of the recommendations of the Royal College of Physicians' guidance Physician Associates in general practice: Scope of practice (9 October 2024); and what estimate have they made of the number of physician associates recruited by GP surgeries since that advice was issued.

NHS England does not hold data on the number of Physician Associates (PAs) recruited by general practices (GPs) since 9 October 2024.

On 20 November 2024, the Government announced it had commissioned an independent review of PAs and Anaesthesia Associates (AAs), led by Professor Gillian Leng CBE. The review will consider the safety of the roles and their contribution to multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The review will report in spring 2025.

While the review is ongoing, it is up to trusts, Primary Care Networks, and GPs to make recruitment decisions about PAs.

NHS England has issued guidance on the deployment of PAs and AAs in the National Health Service which describes the expectations of how organisations providing NHS care should deploy them so that they can contribute to the delivery of safe and effective healthcare in a supportive environment. This guidance remains in place whilst the review is ongoing, and is available at the NHS.UK website, in an online only format.