Trust to welcome more Physician Associates
The trust plans to welcome more Physician Associates (PAs) to its hospitals.
PAs work under the supervision of a consultant but their duties include reviewing patients’ medical histories, carrying out examinations, requesting diagnostic tests and requesting investigations.
At present, the trust employs 18 PAs, including Sarah Kamal, who became its first PA in 2011.
The role was so new when Sarah had completed her two-year training that she couldn’t find a job until an A&E consultant took her on at Northwick Park.
“He’d heard about the positive contribution visiting American PAs had made in Birmingham, so gave me the opportunity to show what I could do.”
More than a decade later, PAs are in the process of joining the General Medical Council as well as being on course to become prescribers.
“We’re full-time employees who offer our teams continuity and experience.”
Sarah describes career progression as ‘horizontal’, with their generalist skills allowing them to work across a number of specialisms while gathering experience and skills.
Sarah currently works with the Same Day Emergency Care team, where she helps assess, treat and discharge frail elderly patients back to the comfort of their own homes.
The new programme will fund six PAs over six months. They will work in various departments, including trauma and orthopaedics, ENT, and infectious diseases.
Chief Physician Associate Rosalie Alpine works in A&E, as well as having responsibility for recruitment and developing the PA network across the Trust.
She said: “PAs bring new talent to the trust, add to the skill mix within teams, providing a stable, generalist section of the workforce which can help ease the workforce pressures the NHS currently faces.”