Safe scope of practice for PAs and PA(A)s

This document sets out a safe scope of practice for PAs and PA(A)s, which NHS employing organisations should adopt to help doctors and other staff to provide safe, high-quality care. These safe practice parameters reflect the BMA’s view that PA and PA(A)s qualifications are appropriate for working in an assistant role under the direct supervision of a doctor – they should not make independent treatment decisions and must not see undifferentiated patients.

The guidance is designed to set out the BMA’s recommendations in relation to safety - NHS employers are encouraged to adopt this safe scope of practice immediately. For the avoidance of doubt, this guidance should not be treated as advice to members on their current interactions with PAs and PA(A)s in relation to issues such as supervision. The BMA is in the process of developing specific guidance in relation to this, which will be published shortly.

Guidance for the supervision of PAs and PA(A)s

This supervision guidance for doctors sets out the BMA’s recommendations on working safely with physician assistants (PAs), physician assistants (anaesthesia) associates (PA[A}s) and surgical care practitioners (SCPs). It aims to standardise practice and avoid variation in what PAs are expected to undertake, and should be read alongside our PAs scope of practice guidance.

Doctors who supervise and work alongside PAs need to be able to assure the safety of the patients they are clinically responsible for at all times. These recommendations have been chosen to provide assurance to patients that a safe level of working is being undertaken that allows PAs to contribute to high quality patient care.

Read our guidance

Physician assistants in general practice

This guidance has been produced to help standardise practice and reduce variation in how physician assistants (PAs) work within the general practice setting. It aims to provide a framework to support physician assistants to work safely in general practice, for patients, their employers, and GP supervisors.  It has been designed to complement the scope of practice and supervision guidance linked above and should also be read in conjunction with GPC England’s guidance.

BMA PAs/PA(A)s Portal

If you have any concerns about the current working arrangements for PAs in your place of work, please do let us know. We want to learn more about any patient safety incidents that may have taken place, occasions when PAs have replaced or are replacing doctors on rotas, and examples of doctor or medical student education and training opportunities being impacted.

Please use this portal to share your experiences without identifying any other healthcare professional or patient. We may use submissions to inform and assist local engagement with employers by BMA staff and BMA local or regional representatives.  We may also use or summarise your submission in media work, the BMA's own publications and/or lobbying on behalf of our members. Your personal information will be anonymised.

All submissions will be seen by the relevant local BMA team, but if you wish to raise a concern that requires a response, please make sure to raise it with a BMA advisor.

PAs/PA(A)s survey

The BMA has conducted a series of comprehensive surveys to inform its position on physician assistants and physician assistants (anaesthesia). The survey findings have been used in our evidence submission to the Leng Review and in our ongoing engagement with central and devolved nation governments, NHS England and devolved nation health departments, the GMC, and other key stakeholders.

The most recent survey of the profession in February 2025 received more than 16,000 responses and found that:

• 95% of respondents want a national scope of practice to clarify what PAs can and can’t do
• 77% of respondents think NHS leaders can't make the PA role safe
• 83% of respondents don't think PAs should be able to provide initial care to patients in general practice and the emergency department
• Only 20% of respondents think GMC regulation will improve patient safety

The new survey follows another in November 2023 of nearly 19,000 doctors, in which almost 9 in 10 respondents said the way PAs and PA(A)s were working in the NHS was always or sometimes a risk to patient safety. Taken together, this evidence shows that the medical profession is deeply concerned with the way the PA experiment has so far progressed.

Also in November 2023, in a survey of more than 2,000 patients, respondents on average ranked physician assistants as being more senior than junior doctors (the former name for residents doctors), demonstrating the level of public confusion around the clinicians that provide them with care. 

The BMA's view

PAs/PA(A)s can play an important role in the wider healthcare system, but they are not a substitute for a doctor who undergoes years of medical training to provide complex, highly skilled care to their patients. There must be no blurring of the lines between PAs and doctors. Patient confusion about which type of clinician has treated them has tragically led to at least 3 deaths. We are calling for urgent changes to prevent this blurring of the professions and ensure patient safety:

• The job title “physician assistant,” should be reintroduced. This is what physician associates were called until 2014. We believe it’s a clearer title that better reflects the role, and crucially, reduces any confusion for patients. AAs should be called physician assistants (Anaesthesia) – as they were previously- or anaesthesia assistants.
• All recruitment of new PAs/PA(A)s must be halted until there is clarity and material assurances around their scope of practice.
• The BMA has produced a safe scope of practice for the PA/PA(A)s, which NHS employing organisations should adopt to help doctors and other staff to provide safe, high-quality care.
• PAs/PA(A)s should be regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), not by the GMC. The GMC has only ever regulated doctors and this change worryingly and unnecessarily undermines the distinctions between the professions.
• PAs/PA(A)s must never, in person or on social media, describe themselves as doctors GPs or medical consultants.
• PAs/PA(A)s cannot replace the expertise offered by a medically qualified practitioner, and this must be recognised in pay scales. All health professionals working in the NHS should be paid properly, but it is clearly wrong that a newly qualified doctor entering postgraduate training is paid over £11,000 less per year than a newly qualified PA, while the doctor’s role, remit and professional responsibility is far greater. We estimate that this is a 35% differential, which is manifestly unjust. We will continue our fight for fair pay for all doctors working in the NHS.

Read the BMA’s September 2023 position statement

Read the BMA Cymru Wales December 2023 position statement

Read the BMA Scotland statement on PAs and PA(A)s from December 2023

What are PAs and PA(A)s?

Physician assistants (PAs)

The Faulty of PAs describes PAs as “healthcare professionals who work as part of a multidisciplinary team with supervision from a named senior doctor (a General Medical Council registered consultant or general practitioner), providing care to patients in primary, secondary and community care environments.”

There are currently around 3250 PAs working in the NHS.

Physician assistants (anaesthesia) (PA[A]s

The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) describes PA(A)s as “trained, skilled practitioners that work within the anaesthetic team under the supervision of an autonomously practicing anaesthetist, such as a consultant or SAS doctor.” 

There are currently around 150 PA(A)s working in the NHS.

The decision to group the professions as MAPs and the career framework

Under the single umbrella of the Medical Associate Professions (MAPs) began with (Health Education England) in 2014, with the intention to work ‘towards a common education and training programme to support a route to statutory regulation’. This originally applied to PAs, PA(A)s, and SCPs with ACCPs added later (with ACCPs having withdrawn since).

HEE created a MAPs oversight board and invited the BMA to send a representative to its Career Framework & Quality subgroup along with representatives from employers, royal colleges, and the devolved nations.

The group’s task was ‘to describe quality management, training and a career framework for MAPs, so that a clear professional identity is developed which supports arrangements for statutory regulation.’ The work of the subgroup has now been subsumed into HEE’s MAPs oversight board, on which the BMA is represented.

MAPs differ in crucial ways; in terms of the tasks they perform, the ways that they train and their entry requirements. These differences mean that developing a single career framework is challenging.

In 2024, NHS England recently consulted on a proposed MAPs career framework. In our response we called for the development of the framework to be paused until such time that MAPs are working to a safe and effective scope of practice.

Read our response to the consultation

Reasons for the introduction of PAs/AAs

The appearance of PAs/AAs in UK healthcare reflects a trend towards the development of multi-disciplinary teams as well as ensuring that there is sufficient workforce to meet demand in the NHS. 

PAs/AAs are seen by the UK government as one of the ways in which workforce pressures in the NHS can be alleviated. In June 2015, the then secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, announced that 1,000 PAs would be introduced into general practice in England to assist in tackling GP workload pressures (as of August 2022 the number stands at 621). 

The devolved governments have also identified PAs/AAs as a potential way to address pressures. 

Alongside increasing the number of doctors by 60,000 by 2036/37, as part of its Long-Term Workforce Plan, the government in England plans to increase the number of physician associates (PAs) from approximately 3,250 to 10,000 (an increase of over 300%); and anaesthesia associates (AAs) from approximately 180 to 2,000.

Regulatory status

Physician assistants and physician assistants (anaesthesia) have been regulated by the GMC since 13th December 2024. PAs and PA(A)s were given two years to register, with registration becoming a legal requirement from December 2026. You can read more about the regulation of PAs and PA(A)s on the GMC website. 

While not regulated as surgical care practitioners, these clinicians are subject to statutory regulation through previous roles. Unlike PAs and PA(A)s, surgical care practitioner roles can only be taken up by individuals who are already registered healthcare professionals. 

Following a 2017 consultation, the UK government decided that the GMC should be the regulator for PAs and PA(A)s. The government introduced secondary legislation via The Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates Order 2024 (AAPAO) to provide for the regulation of PAs and PA(A)s by the GMC. The BMA response to the 2017 consultation argued that all of the medical associate professions should be regulated and that HCPC (Health & Care Professions Council) should take responsibility for regulation, rather than the GMC. 

From March to May 2024, the GMC ran a public consultation on the rules, standards and guidance needed to implement the regulation of physician assistants (PAs) and physician assistants (anaesthesia) (PA[A]s). You can read the BMA’s submission to that consultation and the GMC’s report on the consultation.

The choice of GMC as regulator

The DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) provided the following reasons for their choice of the GMC as regulator:

• The need to be assured that the chosen regulator will be best able to ensure effective public protection. Based on the independent assessment made by the PSA (Professional Standards Authority) on an annual basis, the HCPC has failed 6 out of 10 of the fitness to practice standards set by the PSA for the last two years. In contrast, the GMC continues to meet all of the PSA standards. 
• PAs and PA(A)s are both trained to the medical model and work closely with medical practitioners. Regulation by the GMC will mean that the organisation will have responsibility and oversight of all three professions allowing them to take a holistic approach to the education, training and standards of the roles.
• The majority of respondents to the consultation were in favour of the GMC taking on regulation, including the professional bodies representing the two roles and medical royal colleges (59% for GMC, 20% for HCPC from 3063 total responses).
  
  

The decision to only regulate PAs and PA(A)s

The government response to the PAs/AAs consultation (published in February 2019) did not rule out the future regulation of SCPs and ACCPs, the other professions then being grouped by NHSE as medical associate professions (MAPs).

PAs and PA(A)s must hold an undergraduate degree, usually biomedical sciences, or a health-related science. To become a PA or an PA(A) there is no requirement to be a registered healthcare professional. These roles are described as ‘direct entry’ roles and currently they are not subject to any form of statutory regulation.

To become a ACCP or an SCP, it is necessary to already be a registered healthcare professional. These roles, therefore, do not have direct entry and practitioners will be subject to statutory regulation through their background role. 

It was decided to prioritise the two professions that are currently not subject to any form of statutory regulation.

Decisions on regulation and the career framework apply across the UK.

Can PAs/PA(A)s prescribe?

Currently, PAs/PA(A)s are not given prescribing rights as a result of being an associate. However, prescribing is a part of the role for SCPs. Candidates for SCP roles must already be registered healthcare professionals, meaning that they are eligible to take a qualification in non-medical prescribing.

PA(A)s and PAs are currently not permitted to prescribe or request ionising radiation. However, a small number of PAs have previously held prescribing roles as other kinds of registered healthcare clinicians, meaning that they may retain those prescribing rights.”. Unlike SCPs, PA(A)s and PAs do not need to be registered healthcare professionals from a previous role. However, a small number of PAs have previously held prescribing roles and are registered health care professionals, and this means that they personally retain those prescribing rights.

We believe that this is potentially confusing for patients, clinicians and employers and in 2019 the BMA endorsed a statement from the Royal College of Physicians and the Faculty of Physician Associates which recommended that no PA should prescribe until all PAs are able to do so.

The consultation on regulation of PAs/PA(A)s included questions about prescribing rights, but in their response, the government stated that prescribing would be treated as a separate question and that a separate consultation would follow.

Read a statement on PAs/PA(A)s prescribing by the Resident Doctors Committee and GP Registrars Committee

Professional indemnity coverage

Types of medical indemnity

Read the summary of types of indemnity and an overview of what each cover.

Read our indemnity guidance

As with other members of staff, any PAs/PA(A)s working for an NHS trust are covered by the DHSC clinical negligence scheme for trusts. 

In primary care, physician assistants working in England are now covered by the clinical negligence scheme for general practice (CNSGP) and in Wales by the general medical practice indemnity scheme (GMPI). Practices in England in Wales no longer need to secure indemnity coverage for their clinical staff.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland practices will need to ensure that their practice indemnity coverage includes physician assistants along with their other clinical staff.

PAs/PA(A)s working in any part of the NHS may also choose to have their own personal professional negligence insurance from one of the medical defence organisations.