AN OPEN letter signed by 13,000 doctors has been sent to political leaders ahead of tomorrow’s election, warning of risks to patient safety if concerns around medical associate professions (MAPs) are ignored. 

The letter, co-ordinated by the British Medical Association, highlights evidence of MAPs being routinely substituted for doctors and the worrying trend in general practice funding that has led to physician associates working as GPs.

Prof Phil Banfield, chair of the BMA council, said doctors’ skills are being “demeaned, devalued and even replaced,” and called on the incoming government to “turn this policy disaster around.” 

Last week, the BMA announced plans to take legal action against the General Medical Council (GMC).

It warned the regulatory body that it risks the “dangerous blurring of lines” due to its unsafe description of associates as “medical professionals,” which it says should only be used for doctors.

Unlike doctors, who study medicine for five years and undertake two years of placements, MAPs, which include physician and anaesthesia associates, qualify after a two-year master’s degree.

On Tuesday, the GMC said “the grounds for the threatened judicial review are not even arguable,” and claimed that it had received no objections from the BMA of its intention to apply its “core standards” to MAPs.

The BMA hit back that concerns had been flagged about the GMC being the MAPs regulator since 2017, and that it had been assured by the body in 2020 that most of its communications would be tailored to refer to each profession individually.

The union said the “demonstrable confusion” caused by the use of “medical professionals” to apply to staff other than doctors “is clearly a departure from the assurances,” and that legal action is “sadly necessary.”