This month saw our inaugural Primary Care Physician Associates Annual Conference (PCPAAC23) take place in the beautiful setting of Keele Hall in the heart of Staffordshire, with over 120 Primary Care Physician Associates (PAs) from across the country in attendance.
The conference was held over two days with the first day solely focussed on Primary Care PAs. The day was a huge success providing those PAs in attendance with primary care focused presentations from a range of expert speakers, a regulation update from the GMC and provided PAs the opportunity to network with peers. We were also fortunate enough to have ‘opening remarks’ from Chandra Louis, PA-R FPARCP Vice President and PAs in attendance were also accredited with 5 hours of CPD.
The second day of the conference saw a workforce focus supporting PCNs, PAs and GP leaders with recruitment, retention and development of this rapidly expanding medical workforce in primary care. Delegates were able to hear first-hand experiences of a ‘day in the life of a Physician Associate’, from newly qualified, mid-career and senior PAs in primary care enabling them to go back to practice and start exploring the role of PAs in more depth.
During the conference, a ’Special Recognition Award’ was presented to Alex Strivens PA-R & Training Programme Director for the Staffordshire Physician Associate Internship Programme, for outstanding contributions made to improving the PA profile and increasing the number of PAs in primary care in Staffordshire over the last 6 years.
A special thank you goes to the Staffordshire Training Hub who provided valuable support and all our conference sponsors this year; Lexacom, iPlato Healthcare, X-on, Healum, Locum PA, How2 and The Personalised Care Training Academy.
Feedback to date has been extremely positive with 100% of respondents supporting another conference next year.
“It was a great day and fantastic to see so many primary care PAs in one place! I took away lots of ideas...” – Alex Wolley PA-R, Wales
“The conference was very informative and helped us making decisions about including PAs in our team. We are now actively recruiting.” – Marek Matuszczak Practice Manager, Firdale Medical Centre, Northwich
"I had the privilege of attending PCPAAC23, and it was a fantastic experience! The format was fresh, with the introduction of expert panels." – Clinical Day Delegate
