A BRADFORD health body has apologised and said a ‘rapid review’ will be carried out after major concerns were raised about posters it issued as part of a campaign.
The Bradford District & Craven Health & Care Partnership was thrust into the spotlight after the issue was raised on the social media site X by Dr Rachel Clarke, whose book 'Breathtaking' about the Covid-19 pandemic inspired the ITV drama series of the same name.
The palliative care doctor shared images of posters created by the partnership for the ‘It’s a GP practice thing’ campaign.
The post had 3.5m views and was re-posted nearly 6,000 times.
The posters state that “not everyone needs to see a doctor” and “your GP practice will make sure you speak to the right person as quickly as possible”.
One poster shared by Dr Clarke stated, ‘The Physician will see you now’ while another said ‘The Cancer Specialist will see you now’.
She added: “Physician” is a title that’s protected in law - to protect you, the public, from the dangers of fake doctors masquerading as the real thing.
“Legally, only a qualified doctor with a medical degree can call themselves a physician.
“And, though it’s not a legally protected term, I don’t believe anyone who’s not a senior doctor with specialist training in oncology should call themselves a “cancer specialist” either.
“Yet here we have an NHS body openly (& dishonestly, & illegally) presenting PAs to the public as “physicians” - doctors - when they are no such thing.
“Far from having a 5 year medical degree, they’ve only completed a 2 year PA course whose exit exam with a 100% pass rate.
“Just as bad, they’ve suggested general practices have “cancer specialists” yet these staff are not oncologists or even doctors at all.
“They know full well many people regard “cancer specialist” as synonymous with oncologist. And clearly intend to misread the public.”
Earlier this year, NHS England said PAs are “not substitutes” for GPs and must be supervised.
A letter to all GP surgeries, primary care network clinical directors, integrated care board chief executives, and NHS England regional directors in March said PAs are “specifically trained to work collaboratively with doctors and others” and all work undertaken by PAs “must be supervised and debriefed with their supervising GP”.
It came after concerns were raised about the role of PAs following a patient death and other mistakes in care.
PAs are graduates – usually with a health or life sciences degree – who have undertaken two years of postgraduate training.
According to the NHS, they work under the supervision of a doctor and can diagnose people, take medical histories, perform physical examinations, see patients with long-term conditions, analyse test results and develop management plans.
Most associates work in GP surgeries, acute medicine and emergency medicine.
The Bradford District & Craven Health & Care Partnership issued a lengthy apology after the furore on social media.
It said: “The campaign was developed using community insight as well as the involvement of GP practice colleagues and clinical leads in in Bradford District and Craven.
“The campaign sets out to help people understand the range of roles working alongside doctors in their General Practice team.
“We now recognise that despite receiving feedback from one of our clinical leads, we had not updated all our campaign resources.
“Therefore, the title of physician associate has been incorrectly labelled as physician and although a corrected version of the leaflet was produced, it had not been changed on posters or animations.
“In addition, there are two other titles with the word ‘specialist’ being used which has been highlighted as incorrect, and a healthcare assistant mistakenly described as ‘nurse’.
“These are significant errors and should have been avoided.
“While every care and effort are taken through our campaign planning cycles to ensure materials are accurate, on this occasion mistakes were made.
“We are truly sorry for this as we know the overarching campaign and messaging has been well received by colleagues in primary care and wider community partners.
“Furthermore, we would like to issue a sincere apology for those colleagues whose roles have been mistakenly misrepresented.
“We are undertaking a rapid internal review to understand how this mistake has happened and ensure it does not happen again in the future.
“We will be updating our materials to ensure they are accurate and use the correct titles for colleagues working in general practice teams.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS has been clear that Physician Associates are not doctors – they cannot and must not replace doctors. The roles are trained to work with a range of clinicians as part of a wider team.”
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