What is a Physician Associate?
The Physician Associate (PA) is a rapidly growing healthcare role in the UK, working alongside doctors in hospitals and in GP surgeries.
Physician Associates are relatively new to Wales with Aneurin Bevan Health Board leading the way in the recruitment, governance framework and CPD for PAs.
The PAs are trained to a “medical model “. They complement the medical team supporting doctors in the diagnosis and management of patients and in the delivery of care. They are trained to perform a number of roles including: taking medical histories, performing examinations, analysing test results, and diagnosing illnesses under the direct supervision of a Consultant.
Aneurin Bevan University Health Boards new cohort of 16 PAs joined us in November 2019 and a welcome event was held to introduce the new PAs to the existing 6 PAs already in post. Also present were our valued Clinical Supervisors, Operational Managers and the wider PA support network. The 22 PAs currently employed by Aneurin Bevan work in medicine, surgery, mental health, Intermediate Care, Emergency departments and Primary care.
During the event certificates were presented to the PAs who successfully completed their intern year.
This was followed a week later by the launch of a rolling CPD programme for PAs jointly organised by the postgraduate department and the AMDs office.
Both events were a success with Presentations from Dr Jaideep Kitson, Assistant Medical Director Workforce Redesign, Kathryn Bourne Head of Medical & Dental Workforce, Dr Stephen Edwards - Deputy Medical Director, Dr Deborah Wales - Divisional Director for USC and Richard Morgan-Evans - Assistant Programme Director for Clinical Futures, Prof Simon Noble and the ABUHB Resuscitation Team and Sarah Davies Deputy PG manager.
We are also delighted to announce that Aneurin Bevan Health Board were the winners of the HPMA Wales excellence award for ‘Attraction & Recruitment’ for the work with PAs – Leading the way for Wales.