Skip to main content
Job vacancy with the National Education Union
BMA launches legal action over blurring of lines between doctors and physician associates
Dr Robert Laurenson (right), co-chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors committee, joins junior doctors on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, central London, February 26, 2024

THE BMA announced today that it is taking legal action against the General Medical Council over the way in which it plans to regulate physician associates.

The union is challenging the body’s “unsafe use” of the term “medical professionals” to describe PAs, which it says should only ever be used to refer to qualified doctors.

The legal action was announced by BMA council chairman Professor Philip Banfield at the union’s annual representative meeting in Belfast.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech to the Global Progress Action Summit, at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, London, September 26, 2025
Authoritarianism / 26 September 2025
26 September 2025
Model houses on a pile of coins and bank notes, July 29, 2025
Cost-of Living Crisis / 26 September 2025
26 September 2025
Campaigners outside Leeds Magistrates Court, September 22, 2025
Climate / 24 September 2025
24 September 2025
Britain / 24 September 2025
24 September 2025
Similar stories
Campaigners from the Merseyside Pensioners Association and R
Britain / 13 November 2024
13 November 2024
A general view of medical equipment on a NHS hospital ward a
Britain / 1 October 2024
1 October 2024