Years of austerity and political failure have left classrooms overcrowded and staff overstretched – now educators are organising across roles to demand change, says ED HARLOW
SINCE warnings were first raised about the dangers of the government’s plans to expand the use, and in many cases the responsibilities, of “physician associates” and “anaesthetist associates,” the issue has begun to gain traction in the public mind.
At first, almost no politicians were coming out against the government’s planned backdoor legislation, by means of a scarcely scrutinised “statutory instrument,” changing the regulation of associate roles.
Under the new instrument, these will be regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC), the body that regulates doctors, even though these new roles do not have medical training.
In the second part of her critique of Wes Streeting’s TenYear Plan for Health, HELEN MERCER looks at the central planks of this privatisation blueprint



