Closed call for evidence

Independent review of physician associates and anaesthesia associates: call for analysis and research

Published 21 February 2025

Applies to England

Background

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has established an independent review of the physician associate (PA) and anaesthesia associate (AA) professions to make recommendations to inform future government policy, led by Professor Gillian Leng CBE. The areas the review will consider include the safety of the roles and their contribution to multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The conclusions of the review will help to inform the workforce plan to deliver the 10 Year Health Plan. 

The Leng review will take an open and transparent approach to gathering evidence from all stakeholders and will be based on the best available evidence and data. This call for evidence forms one part of a multi-method approach to evidence gathering. In line with the review’s commitment to be collaborative and inclusive, there will be other ways for relevant groups and organisations to share their views. This will include, but is not limited to:

• a targeted survey for PAs, AAs and those that work with them
• review of published research
• real-world data
• site visits
• webinars for healthcare professionals
• focus groups for patients

While it will not be possible to respond in detail to all submissions received, the Leng review team will read and consider all information shared.

Call for evidence criteria

The Leng review is seeking evidence which contributes towards an understanding of:

• the relative safety of the PA and AA roles
• the contribution to effective and productive multidisciplinary teams
• the delivery of good quality and efficient patient care across a range of settings
• patient satisfaction with the roles

This call for evidence is asking for submissions in the following areas:

• trust or practice-level analysis, including those based on audit data, patient throughput or local collection of safety and efficacy data
• trust or practice-level analysis of patient experience, including complaints, compliments or feedback
• education and training provider analysis, including evaluation of curricula, quality assurance reports or local collections of data
• union-led analysis, including the function of multidisciplinary teams, staffing levels and education and training
• unpublished research
• other relevant analysis

Submissions should only be made by individuals:

• on behalf of a relevant organisation
• independently (if submitting unpublished research)

The relevant senior responsible director must approve any submissions uploaded on behalf of an organisation. This should be either the clinical or medical director in secondary care, or the senior partner or employer in primary care or other settings. Respondents will be asked for the name and email address of the approver.

Any evidence uploaded:

• should not have been published elsewhere in a peer-reviewed journal as this will already have been identified
• must not contain information that may identify individuals
• should contain an appropriate comparator where possible that is relevant to the data concerned. Ideally, we would like to compare multidisciplinary teams containing PAs or AAs with teams that do not contain these roles
• must be analysed and summarised prior to submission as we cannot handle unprocessed data

You may upload:

• documents (for example, DOC, DOCX and PDF files)
• spreadsheets (for example, XLS, XLSX and CSV files)

You can upload multiple documents as part of your submission. However, your evidence may be rejected if it does not meet the criteria above.

All data will be reviewed solely within the context in which it is submitted. The review team does not have access to and will not be cross-referencing submissions against employment or any other records of named individuals.

Call for evidence questions

About you

Question

In what capacity are you responding to this call for evidence?

• On behalf of an organisation
• As an individual submitting unpublished research

Questions for individuals only

Question

What is your job title?

Questions for those responding on behalf of an organisation only

Question

What is the name of your organisation?

Question

What type of organisation are you responding on behalf of?

• GP practice
• Primary care network
• Community health service
• Integrated care provider
• Acute trust
• Specialist trust
• Mental health trust
• Urgent treatment centre
• Professional and training body
• Royal college
• Support and advocacy organisation
• Commissioning and policy body
• Regulator and oversight body
• Union
• Other (please specify)

Question

Where does your organisation operate or provide services? (Select all that apply)

• East Midlands
• East of England
• London
• North East England
• North West England
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• South East England
• South West England
• Wales
• West Midlands
• Yorkshire and the Humber
• Outside the UK

Email contact

Question

As part of this call for evidence, we may need to contact you via email if we have any questions about the evidence you submitted. Do you agree to share your email address with the Leng review team?

• Yes
• No

If yes, what is your email address?

Evidence submission

Question

Which roles does your evidence apply to? (Select all that apply)

• AAs
• PAs working in primary care
• PAs working in a mental health trust
• PAs working in secondary care
• Other (please specify)

If your evidence applies to PAs working in primary care, which primary care network does your evidence relate to?

If your evidence applies to any role other than PAs working in primary care, which NHS trusts does your evidence relate to?

Question

If you are responding on behalf of an organisation, what types of evidence would you like to submit? (Select all that apply)

• Trust or practice-level analysis, including those based on audit data, patient throughput or local collection of safety and efficacy data
• Trust or practice-level analysis of patient experience, including complaints, compliments or feedback
• Education and training provider analysis including evaluation of curricula, quality assurance reports or local collection of data
• Union-led analysis, including the function of multidisciplinary teams, staffing levels and education and training
• Unpublished research
• Other relevant analysis

Please provide the name, role and email of the person who has approved this evidence to be submitted to the Leng review.

File upload

Upload your evidence (file upload, maximum 5 files for each type of evidence).

Please provide a brief description of what the attached file contains (maximum 1,750 characters).

Declaration

I confirm that the evidence I have submitted has not been published and does not contain information that may identify individuals (checkbox).

How to respond

Submissions should be uploaded directly using the request for evidence form by 11:59pm on 21 March 2025. Any personal data will be deleted at the point of review publication.

You will also be asked whether you are happy to be contacted by the review team in relation to your submission.

If you have any questions about the review, contact leng.review@dhsc.gov.uk.

Next steps

The evidence gathered will help to inform the conclusions and recommendations set out in the Leng review.

Privacy notice

Summary of initiative or policy

The Leng review will consider the safety of PA and AA roles and their contribution to multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The conclusions of the review will help to inform the refreshed workforce plan that the government has committed to publish in summer 2025 and wider government policy. The review’s terms of reference sets out the purpose and timing of the review.

Data controller

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is the data controller.

What personal data we collect

We will be collecting individual respondents’ job titles and which trust or integrated care system the submitted evidence is about.

For respondents submitting evidence on behalf of an organisation, we’ll be collecting the organisation name, location, the type of organisation and which trust or integrated care system the submitted evidence is about. We’ll also collect the name, role and email of the senior responsible director for submitting evidence on behalf of an organisation.

All respondents will be asked if they want to share their email address.

How we use your data (purposes)

We will use this data to inform the deliberations of the review. Data will also be used to ensure that the review is hearing from an appropriate range of respondents.

While data used for the above purposes will be anonymised, we may use personal data to request to contact individual respondents for further discussions.

Legal basis for processing personal data

Under Article 6 of the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful basis we rely on for processing this personal data is:

• e) the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions and the task or function has a clear basis in law

Data processors and other recipients of personal data

This call for evidence is hosted via an online platform owned by SocialOptic, who are a contracted supplier of DHSC. SocialOptic will delete any personal data in line with the retention and disposal periods outlined in this privacy notice, or earlier if instructed to do so by DHSC. Only the Leng review team and those involved in managing this online form will have access to this data.

International data transfers and storage locations

Storage of data by SocialOptic while the call for evidence is open is provided via secure servers in the UK.

After the call for evidence closes, data will be stored by DHSC, also in the UK.

Retention and disposal policy

We will retain this information for the length of the review, which is due to conclude in June 2025.

How we keep your data secure

We will store this material within DHSC’s secure systems and in line with DHSC’s data protection policies.

Your rights as a data subject

By law, data subjects have a number of rights, and this processing does not take away or reduce these rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 applies.

These rights are:

• the right to get copies of information - individuals have the right to ask for a copy of any information about them that is used
• the right to get information corrected - individuals have the right to ask for any information held about them that they think is inaccurate to be corrected
• the right to limit how the information is used - individuals have the right to ask for any of the information held about them to be restricted - for example, if they think inaccurate information is being used
• the right to object to the information being used - individuals can ask for any information held about them to not be used. However, this is not an absolute right, and continued use of the information may be necessary, with individuals being advised if this is the case
• the right to get information deleted - this is not an absolute right, and continued use of the information may be necessary, with individuals being advised if this is the case

Comments or complaints

Anyone unhappy or wishing to complain about how personal data is used as part of this programme should contact data_protection@dhsc.gov.uk in the first instance or write to:

Data Protection Officer
1st Floor North
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0EU

Anyone who is still not satisfied can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Their postal address is:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Automated decision making or profiling

No decision will be made about individuals solely based on automated decision making (where a decision is taken about them using an electronic system without human involvement) which has a significant impact on them.

Changes to this policy

We keep this privacy notice under regular review, and we will update it if necessary. All updated versions will be marked by a change note on the call for evidence page. This privacy notice was last updated on 21 February 2025.