History Shows Patients At Risk From Physician Associates

Avoidable harm caused to patients both in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom shows the introduction of physician associates is a risk to patient safety, New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced that physician associates will be regulated as a new profession in New Zealand.

NZNO President Anne Daniels says the introduction of the new, overseas trained workforce, leaves patients vulnerable to misdiagnoses or worse. Similar concerns have also been raised by the Resident Doctors’ Association.

"Here in New Zealand there have been concerns physician associates have failed to take a patient’s blood pressure, leading to a brain bleed and loss of vision.

"In the United Kingdom where physician associates have been part of the health sector for the past 20 years, there has been a litany of issues including the misdiagnosis of an aggressive breast cancer resulting in the death of a young mother, opiates illegally prescribed, failure to detect a deadly pulmonary embolism and a drain left in a patient’s abdomen."

Anne Daniels says nurses are focused on providing the safe, high-quality and culturally appropriate care New Zealanders expect and deserve.

"The introduction of physician associates is an unnecessary quick and cheap fix to the doctor shortage when we have a competent and experienced nurse practitioner workforce available to do this work. The Minister must immediately stop the introduction and regulation of physician associates here," she says.

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