Box 1.

: Recent UK policy statements on new healthcare workers

• “The time is right to consider a new breed of healthcare professional, the Medical Assistant, who could take on many of the tasks currently undertaken by doctors and nurses and free staff for work for which they are trained.”—Sir George Alberti, president of the Royal College of Physicians²
• “There needs to be concerted action to take forward work to develop the roles of new types of workers . . . Action in this area should build on the thinking about a “physician's assistant” role and on the current work in hand taking forward recommendations from the reports on The Future Healthcare Workforce.”—Consultation document on the review of workforce planning³
• “The profession is not closing its mind to new types of health worker. The idea of the physician's assistant will be looked at.”—John Denham, health minister⁴
• “Physician's assistants would have a two year training followed by two years learning on the job and would be trained in specific tasks working in accident and emergency departments, taking blood samples, arranging X-rays, and making all of the measurements for the doctor to come along.”—Sir George Alberti⁴
• “This principle [to train staff for new roles] can be extended to other areas of care, building on Royal College proposals for a physician's assistant.”—The NHS Plan¹
• “We recommend a radical review of the work undertaken by doctors and other health care workers. The introduction of a new cadre of Health Care Practitioner is strongly suggested.”—Royal College of Physicians⁵