How did the RCP get into a mess over physician associates?
The Royal College of Physicians has been at the centre of the UK row over physician associates. Adele Waters explores what happened and where it leaves the college now In March 2024 the Royal College of Physicians was forced to hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), only the third in its more than 500 year history.1 The issue that prompted it was physician associates (PAs), specifically their regulation, scope of practice, and expansion across the health service. The meeting was ill tempered and fraught, with participants describing it as “really aggressive” and an “unmitigated disaster.”2 Such was the concern about the meeting’s conduct and the level of hostility in the room that the RCP was forced to admit it had failed its membership and ordered an independent review to establish what had gone wrong.3 That review, carried out by the health think tank the King’s Fund and published in September,2 found a “pervasive lack of trust and confidence” in the RCP’s governance and that i
