We are pleased to announce that the British Medical Association (BMA) has offered us crucial financial support to help us, together with the Chesterton family, in our legal fight over Physician Associates and Anaesthesia Associates (PAs and AAs).
This is vital in enabling us to continue our fight, but we remain significantly short of the funds required to see this case through to the end.
The BMA has agreed to provide us with an indemnity for any adverse legal costs for certain stages of the case. Under UK law we could be liable to pay the GMCs own costs if we are unsuccessful.
In addition, despite our requests, they have refused to give any assurance that they would not try to seek costs against Marion and Brendon Chesterton, who have courageously joined us after the tragic death of their daughter, Emily.
This refusal to shield grieving parents from the financial burden of legal costs is, to put it charitably, striking, especially when the GMC’s website proclaims that all the costs currently associated with regulating AAs and PAs, including presumably its own lawyers’ fees, are being paid by the taxpayer via the Department of Health. This raises serious questions about whether public money is being used to defend a flawed regulatory process that endangers patients.
The BMA’s decision to support this case is generous, rare and highly significant. They do not typically fund legal actions brought by others; this move highlights the enormous gravity of the situation. We are deeply grateful for their help and recognition of how vital this is to healthcare in the UK.
Our legal challenge focuses on what Associates can and cannot do. As the BMA has pointed out, the GMC’s failure to enforce a clear scope of practice for these roles makes them not Regulators, but Enablers of dangerous “scope creep.” A failure that puts lives at risk as unqualified individuals are permitted to take on responsibilities they are simply not trained or competent to handle.
The BMA is also pursuing its own, parallel legal case against the GMC over the misleading terminology used to describe Associates and it’s ‘one size fits all Good Medical Practice document which purports to apply the same conduct rules to AAs, PAs and doctors alike despite the differences in these roles. Many patients report being unaware that they were seeing a PA or AA. They are told they are being treated by a “medical professional”—a deliberately vague term that obscures the reality. If the GMC cannot even ensure that patients know who is treating them then how can the public trust the integrity of the healthcare system?
Physicians call for a delay
This generous offer from the BMA comes in the same week that the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh issued a statement calling for the legislation regarding regulation to be delayed until a clear nationally agreed scope, and ‘ceiling of practice protocols’, are in place, and a suspension of any further recruitment or deployment of PAs in the NHS in all four nations.
And the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has now announced that they would be unable to support the continued rollout of Associates until an independent review can assure them that Associates are safe and cost-effective.
We are not taking this action to protect doctors. We are doing this to protect patients. Anaesthetists United came together originally because we were worried about AAs undertaking roles far beyond the RCoA Scope of Practice.
We have seen AAs bragging in a Lancaster University promo video that they break the rules. The GMC has a statutory and overarching duty to protect the public, and we believe they are failing in that duty. Your support is critical in holding them accountable.
Please consider making a donation to help us continue this essential legal fight.