Following on from the previously announced resignations from the Faculty of Physician Associates, another board member has now stepped down from the FPA.
On the 6th June, the FPA announced that Jamie Saunders had resigned from his position as president. The FPARVP vice president, Chandran Louis also resigned his post, along with the FPA Dean Pauline Weir and another board member.
The FPA announced on 14th June the resignation of another board member.
The mass resignations from the FPA come at a time of significant upheaval for the physician associate profession. The Royal College of Physicians, which has hosted the Faculty of Physician Associates, has moved from a position of support for the PA profession, to now calling for a limit in the pace and scale of the roll-out of physician associates (PAs).
The RCP is calling on NHSE to review its projections for growth in the PA workforce until issues of regulation, standards and national scope of practice are addressed. Following a vote of Council members, the RCP will close the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register as soon as the GMC becomes the regulatory body for medical associate professionals. From 13 December, PAs will be expected to join the GMC register.
In an email to FPA members, the FPA recognise ‘that this news will have been unsettling’. The FPA email said that the ‘former Board members all performed their roles with dedication and dignity’.
The FPA recently announced the results of a ballot of members, who voted with 60% majority to become independent from the Royal College of Physicians within a year.