Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
The backdoor changes in ‘medical associate’ roles are intended to confuse and increase profits
The expansion of ‘physician associates’ is intended to blur the lines between doctors and non-doctors to make the NHS more profitable for big business. We must take every opportunity to end it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
Staff on a NHS hospital ward, October 3, 2014

SINCE warnings were first raised about the dangers of the government’s plans to expand the use, and in many cases the responsibilities, of “physician associates” and “anaesthetist associates,” the issue has begun to gain traction in the public mind.

At first, almost no politicians were coming out against the government’s planned backdoor legislation, by means of a scarcely scrutinised “statutory instrument,” changing the regulation of associate roles.

Under the new instrument, these will be regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC), the body that regulates doctors, even though these new roles do not have medical training.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
THE PRIVATEER: Wes Streeting
Features / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint