The UK National Health Service is funded by UK citizen taxation and provided by the government and is comprised of primary care facilities that offer healthcare for ‘general’ diseases and secondary and tertiary care providers that offer specialist care. Physician associates (PA) are medical professionals with generalist medical knowledge who work under a doctor’s supervision to form a multidisciplinary team within these facilities. The occupation was introduced to help alleviate the pressures on healthcare due to high workloads and doctor shortages. The PA is a relatively novel position within the healthcare system capable of influencing healthcare and will be discussed further in this essay.
Influence on Patient Healthcare and Patient Flow
The PA can influence patient flow through a healthcare facility due to their extensive clinical duties like taking medical histories, conducting physical examinations, requesting and interpreting investigations, performing venipunctures, admitting and discharging patients, diagnosing and treating diseases. These responsibilities can help determine whether a patient is moved, admitted, or discharged. This shows that the PA can offer aid in managing patient workloads.
Medical Model
The PA is trained to the medical model, meaning they can identify and diagnose pathologies with complex clinical presentations; this is beneficial to secondary care healthcare teams as the PA can give valuable medical knowledge to colleagues and patients. It is also of benefit to primary care as the PA, based upon the pathologies they are observing, can refer patients to the appropriate specialist healthcare facility.
Importance of Autonomy
The PA can help support the workloads of doctors. This is because they can fulfil some clinical duties a doctor has due to their extensive medical knowledge and their degree of autonomy whilst under supervision. This frees up the doctor’s time to focus on more complex or sick patients. This ability of the PA, therefore, can be valuable to the healthcare system.
Limitations to Patient Care
The PA is a new profession, and many patients are unfamiliar with what they are and their duties. This can influence a patient’s decision not to be seen by a PA, but by a doctor instead. Currently, PAs lack statutory regulation; therefore, they cannot request diagnostic ionizing radiation (like X-ray, MRI and CT scans) and cannot request prescription medication without a doctor’s signature. This can be an inconvenience, as the PA may have to wait for the doctor to be available for the signature, which could slow patient care. Discharges dependent on medication prescriptions could also be affected.
Conclusion
The PA profession was implemented to aid with the current pressures in healthcare. The PAs varied clinical duties, medical knowledge and level of autonomy enables them to positively affect healthcare and the issues like doctor shortages and high workloads. However, the PA’s clinical potential and ability to influence patient care further is limited as they lack statutory regulation. Future changes are needed to these regulations to advance their functionality in healthcare.