GMC approves PA and AA courses

The General Medical Council (GMC) has given formal approval to 36 courses for training Physician Associates (PAs) and Anaesthesia Associates (AAs), marking the first time course providers have been subject to its formal quality assurance process since it took on their regulation in December last year.

In total, 33 PA courses have been approved, with four—Bradford, Greater Manchester, Queen Mary University of London, and Sheffield Hallam—receiving conditional approval that requires targeted action plans to address identified concerns. In contrast, the PA course at the University of East London did not meet the required standards due to issues with teaching quality and course delivery, leading to a deferral of qualifications and a pause in recruitment until improvements are made.

All three AA courses currently operating in the UK have been approved. This comprehensive quality assurance ensures that patients, employers, and colleagues can be confident that PAs and AAs possess the knowledge and skills necessary for safe practice, with all decisions formally ratified by the GMC Council after thorough engagement with course providers.

Professor Colin Melville, the GMC’s Medical Director and Director of Education and Standards, said:

‘This is an important milestone in the regulation of PAs and AAs and will provide assurance, now and in the future, that those who qualify in these roles have the appropriate skills and knowledge that patients rightly expect and deserve.

‘As a regulator, patient safety is paramount, and we have a robust quality assurance process for PA and AA courses, as we do for medical schools. We have been engaging with course providers for several years already, and we only grant approval where they meet our high standards.’

The GMC assessed all course providers against its standards. Compliance was assessed through the following quality assurance activities.

• Two annual returns from each course provider, in which they provided information against each of the standards in describing how they met that standard.
• At least one in-person visit with each course provider. Typically, these involved meeting the programme management team, year one and year two students, academic and clinical educators and representatives of clinical placement providers. 
• The review of a submission from each course provider mapping their course syllabus against the relevant national curriculum for PA or AA education.

The courses have a combined capacity for up to 1,059 PAs and 42 AAs (1,101 in total) to qualify each year.