The Future for Physician Associates? | Prof. Gillian Leng
Professor Gillian Leng, President of the Royal Society of Medicine was asked to carry out an independent review into the role of physician and anaesthetic associates.
She sits down with Kamran Abbasi, editor in chief of The BMJ, to discuss her findings. In the UK, the rollout of physician associates, NHS staff who took on some of the tasks of doctors, has been both haphazard and controversial.
Originally copied from similar roles in the U.S., British PAs were introduced in the early 2000s. The level of clinical responsibility they were asked to take on began to vary around the country, driven mostly by the workforce needs of individual Trusts.
The lack of clarity about their roles lead to disquiet with doctors, worry for patients, and an increasingly toxic debate on social media.
01.00 What is the Leng Review?
10:00 Recommendation one: Renaming
14:00 Recommendation two: Easier identification
16:00 Recommendation three: How to work?
20:00 Recommendation four: Diagnosis
25:00 Recommendation five: Oversight & Regulation
32:00 Prescribing and ordering ionizing radiation?
40:00 A failure of workforce planning and vision ?
49:00 The NHS 10 year plan
--------
52:53
--------
52:53
NHS 10 year plan dissected
This week we’re focusing on the NHS.
On the 3rd of July the UK’s Prime Minister, Kier Starmer finally announced the NHS’ 10 year plan. His Labour government laid out a vision for where the healthcare service should head over the next decade.
The announcement has been met with mixed responses. The plan has some good ideas - but a lack of vision combined with scarcity of detail leave many questions about how well its aims can be implemented.
In this podcast we're joined by 3 experts to dissect the details of this plan
Jennifer Dixon is chief executive of the Health Foundation
Katie Bramhall-Stainer is a working GP, and chairs the BMA’s General Practice committee.
David Oliver is a consultant geriatrician, and a columnist for the BMJ
Reading list
News analysis: What is the NHS 10 year plan promising and how will it be delivered?
Editorial: Government’s 10 year plan for the NHS in England
David Oliver's column: The NHS 10 year plan—more a set of ambitions than a plan
--------
42:26
--------
42:26
What are doctors demanding? | New BMA Chair, Tom Dolphin
Rebecca Coombes interviews Dr. Tom Dolphin, consultant anaesthetist and newly elected chair of the BMA Council.
Watch this interview on our YouTube.
--------
34:35
--------
34:35
Time to rethink GP's advice on weightloss, and ticagrelor data doubts
Last December, The BMJ published an investigation into the 2009 PLATO trial - exposing serious problems with that study’s data analysis and reporting. Our follow up investigation has shown that those data problems extend to other key supporting evidence in AstraZeneca’s initial application to regulators.
Peter Doshi, senior editor in the BMJ’s Investigations unit, and Rita Redberg, cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at UCSF and former editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, join us to explain what this means for scientific integrity, and trust in the FDA's approval processes.
Also in this episode. A group of international authors are arguing that weightloss advice given in primary care might actually be doing more harm than good - it’s ineffective and potentially reinforces damaging stigma.
To explain why they came to that conclusion we're joined by Juan Franco editor in chief of BMJ EBM, and a practicing GP in Germany, and Emma Grundtvig Gram, from the Centre for General Practice at the University of Copenhagen
Reading list
Doubts over landmark heart drug trial: ticagrelor PLATO study
Ticagrelor doubts: inaccuracies uncovered in key studies for AstraZeneca’s billion dollar drug
Beyond body mass index: rethinking doctors’ advice for weight loss
--------
33:38
--------
33:38
The plan for NHS league tables is bad, and will lead to unintended consequences
In this episode, we hear about ketamine addiction. It's in the news, but the rise in addiction amongst young people in the UK has caused concern for some time. Irene Guerrini and Nicola Kalk, both addiction psychiatrists from the National Addiction Centre, join us to explain why its become a problem.
In November 2024 Wes Streeting, the UK’s health and social care minister, announced that he was planning to introduce league tables for hospitals - and would be linking managers' pay and continued employment to those outcomes.
Richard Lilford, from the University of Birmingham, Timothy Hofer, from the University of Michigan, and Ian Leistikow, an inspector at the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate, join us to explain why this is a bad idea.
Non-prescribed ketamine use is rising in the UK
Hospital league tables, targets, and performance incentives should be used with care
UK