Physician Associates

The development of Physicians Associates (PAs) in the UK has progressed rapidly over recent years and the role is recognised as having an important part to play in the provision of patient care both now and in the future.

PAs are part of the multi-professional workforce required for the modern NHS both in hospital-based specialities and within primary care. Judging from the success of PA posts in Primary Care elsewhere in the UK it is likely that PAs will become a very effective part of GP practice and cluster workforce across North Wales in the future.

In order to prepare our workforce for a role in primary care, the Academy recognised the importance of clinical supervision and ongoing learning for newly qualified PAs entering the workforce for the first time post-qualification. Taking advice from the Faculty of Physician Associate (FPA) a 12 month Internship programme was developed.

Primary Care Internship Programme

The Academy offers a 12 month funded primary care Internship for newly qualified Physician Associates (PAs) qualifying from Welsh Universities on annual basis.

PAs must have completed their MSc in Physician Associate Studies, have passed both elements of the Physician Associate National Exam and have registered on the Managed Voluntary Physician Associate Register.

PAs are employed by the health board on Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions on a Band 7 salary.

Applications open in the spring prior to Physician Associates sitting their national exams for a November intake.

What is the Primary Care Internship?

The Primary Care Internship is a 12 month placement with a GP practice who are able to support newly a qualified Physician Associate take their first step into working as a qualified PA.

The Academy recognises that as a newly qualified PA, it can be quite daunting so we have designed this internship programme to lay a foundation for their personal and professional practice for years to come.

The programme has three distinct elements:

1. Clinical practice: 80% of their time will be in practice, spent seeing patients, either in the practice, on home visits and/or via telephone and video consultation.
2. Continued Professional Development: 10% of their time is protected for continued professional development needs – this can include attending the monthly PA education sessions with other newly qualified and experienced PAs, it can be self directed learning and can include spending time with other practitioners in the practice, community services or other PAs across the health board.
3. Audit /Research/Quality Improvement: We actively encourage our PAs to undertake an audit or participate in clinical research if the practice is research active or to identify a service or quality improvement project.

Previous cohorts have submitted the findings of their audits to the RCGP and have been able to attend the conference in order to present their Posters.

RCGP Posters

The first cohort of Physician Associates in primary care designed and completed an audit looking at patient presentations in primary care and how these align to the PA Core Competencies Matrix. The findings were presented in a poster at the virtual RCGP conference held on 11-12 February 2021. Congratulations to Heledd, Craig, Beth and Jo, who were awarded the ‘Best Poster' in the Service Delivery category with their poster titled ‘Increasing the capacity in Primary Care with Physician Associates'.

Continued Professional Development

The health board offers monthly PA specific education sessions, these are usually face to face in one of the three District General Hospitals and all PAs working in the health board and their partners including primary care settings are welcome to attend.

The education programme is varied and we look to the PAs to share with us their ideas on topics and areas of interest. We also expect our PAs to join in to and prepare and present cases on a regular basis.