Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling physician associates to prescribe medicines.

Healthcare professionals, including physician associates, must be statutorily regulated before the service need for them to be able to train as independent prescribers can be assessed.

The Department is currently considering options for a consultation on the regulation of physician associates, which will be published in due course.

In addition NHS England, in conjunction with the Department, is currently considering whether there is evidence of service need for expansion of the groups of National Health Service professionals who can train to take up prescribing and medicines supply and/or administration responsibilities.