25/08/2024
Concerns about physician associates are not just about protecting GP's jobs - this opinion piece is failing to understand that patients interests are at risk too.
Most of the concerns about physician associates are about making sure that they are working alongside GP's, not replacing GP care, and that people still have their right to see a GP protected.
All too often, the current process of deciding who gets to see a GP is not an extensive process - It's about treating what's visible, what's obvious and what people already know to raise concerns about. Look at the number of complaints that there are already about receptionists getting in the way of people getting the right appointments!
Being able to see a nurse, a physician associate or a pharmacist is really useful for a lot of everyday health conditions, but is certainly not going to help with providing long term medical care for everyone, especially people with a lot of health concerns who may struggle to explain them.
As anybody with hidden disabilities, chronic health issues and inflammatory conditions can tell you, these conditions just can't be managed in that way.
People need the consistency of going to see a GP, preferably the same GP so that there is continuity of care and observation can take place.
We need clinicians who work with people to make sure that they don't fall through the cracks if their conditions don't fit into the standard boxes too.
Without that, people's conditions will not be managed properly leading to increased poor outcomes, reduced quality of life and capacity and much greater costs to our health care systems.
We can't rely on individual people to report their health concerns effectively either - without specialist support, especially when people are ill and their health conditions have cognitive impacts
It would be great if physician associates were able to offer this support but so far we've seen no sign of it.
This does however leave the way clear for services like Health Heard - offering a health check-in that helps people make sure that they are giving as much information as possible in a way that doctors and physicians will find useful.
And helping people make sure that they get to see the right doctor or clinician at the right time.
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