"It's about providing patient safety": Health minister on regulating physician associates

Physician associates will soon be a regulated profession working in primary care and hospitals. 

These are health professionals who have been trained overseas, who have the function of a GP but have to work under the supervision of a doctor. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
I'd be physician associates will be soon a regulated profession
working within primary care and hospitals. These are health professionals
who have been trained overseas who have the functions of
a GP but have to work under the supervision of
a doctor and Health Minister Simeon Brown is with me
and now good more, good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Sorry, good afternoon. How are you good? Thanks? Hey, one weekend?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
It is indeed, hey, broadly speaking, what is the mischief?
I mean that from a legal terminology point of view,
what's the mischief that you want to correct with this?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, physician associates currently an overseas trained profession from Canada,
US or the UK, so not currently recognized in New
Zealand under our health quality regulatory regime. And so what
the government has agreed to do is to regulate which
recognizes physician associates in New Zealand. And by regulating it regulated,

(01:05):
this profession effectively does two things. Firstly, it protects patients.
It means that there's proper regulatory processes in place to
ensure that people in these roles are properly qualified and trained.
And secondly supports the growth of our physician associates in
New Zealand as part of our healthcare profession. And we
anticipate to be more physician associates who are keen to

(01:27):
come to New Zealand be part of deliberate, timely equality
healthcare for New Zealanders.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
What are the numbers currently and where do you expect
us to sort of level out?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, it's currently about fifty in New Zealand and so
these are they said overseas trained. We're expecting that to
grow by around fifty per year going forward. So it's
not a large profession, but these physician associates will do
play a role in primary care and in some hospitals

(01:57):
in terms of assisting GPS as part of a multidisciplinary
team to care for patients. Number of things they can do.
They can examine patients, they can evaluate, diagnose and treat
under the supervision of a doctor. There's some things they
can't do because they aren't doctors, but they can be

(02:18):
the part of a team to help support patients in
those settings.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Do you envisage that they will those physician associates will
eventually become GPS or qualified doctors able to not needing
any oversight.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
No, the context here is they have to be with
the supervision of a doctor. That's the context, that are
part of a team providing care. There may be further
things that they may be able to do in the future,
such as prescribing medicines, but the purpose of physician associates
is that they're able to assist doctors in those.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yes, yes, I understand that. I meant, do you envisage
that they may want to they're still able to try
and pursue further qualification.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, so they are able to pursue those
qualifications absolutely, yes, some of them.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
So because it doesn't seem like a lot, does it,
I mean, how much of a difference to I mean,
I was surprised we say fifty and then maybe another fifty.
It doesn't seem like much. What's the impact on the
whole system.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I think the reality is we don't train physician
associates in New Zealand. Firstly, they're not recognized until the government.
Until now, since the governments are recognized physician associates, we
don't train physician associates, So there's an overseas qualification and
by recognizing them. We anticipate there's going to be a
large number or a larger number look to New Zealand

(03:38):
to see New Zealand as a place to come and work.
And that's why we say this workforce is going to
start increasing in size quite substantially in coming years. And
also you know in the future they may well be
training pathways in New Zealand. But this is about providing
that certainty, it's about providing that patient safety here in
New Zealand. As we expect that these roles to grow, does.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It put more compliance pressure on practices who are using
physician assayciate yet or is this something that's relatively easily managed.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, I think the key thing here is it actually
it recognizes the profession and also it puts that confidence
in that regulatory confidence in place. So physician associates are
being used in are care setting or in a hospital setting,
it means that the Medical Council who will be regulating them,
I have checked their check to ensure they've got the

(04:28):
appropriate qualifications, that have done the appropriate level of training,
that they're working within their scope. So those are what
we expect of, you know, our medical professionals. And so
it's about actually recognizing them and actually putting those same
compliance restrictions in place. But they're there for a good reason,

(04:49):
which is to keep patients safe.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
How do you manage the expectations of patients in terms
of understanding who they are actually being treated by. It's
a physician associate, not a doctor. Do you think that
most people don't care, They just want to be able
to get into their GP and be seen by someone
and that that's enough.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I think if you, I think if you go
into modern general practice or primary care settings today, you
know there's doctors, there's nurse practitioners, there's nurses, there's a
whole range of different health professionals working in those contexts,
and so I see this as another part of providing
that care. Obviously, the doctor is still the key part

(05:26):
of providing that care and providing that care to patients,
but there is a range of health practitioners already operating
in primary care services providing that care to patients, and
that's where these practitioners will be able. Physician associates will
player an additional role. Obviously, there'll be up to individual

(05:46):
doctors clinics in primary care clinics to decide what the
mix of staff they intend they expect to have within
their practice and meet the needs of their patients.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
So regulations coming into effect not until twenty twenty six.
What's so from now on, what's governing things? Where we're at.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
So the next steps of the Medical Council puts together
the scope of practice and they which will look at
what the qualifications are, the number of hours of training,
et cetera. That that provides the regulatory regime and from
that point onwards it'll be it'll be formalized. This is
about the government making the decision for the Medical Council

(06:27):
then to regulate and that process then kicks off.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, good stuff. Hey, thanks really appreciate your time this authnoon. Simmons.
Thanks very much for.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
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Speaker 1 (06:37):
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