GP practices employing a Physician Associate (PA) on a 12 month preceptorship in primary care can claim up to £5,000 worth of Physician Associate support funding. This is a national offer available from Health Education England (HEE) that is valid until 31st March 2021.
The funding is designed to help support the PA in their first year of qualification but there are no hard and fast rules about how it should be used. It could be used to support the PA directly in training and development, or it could be used to backfill staffing resource to enable supervisors to spend that little extra time with the PA.
In terms of claiming, once a PA has been appointed and there is a start date in place the practice can write to HEE via Jacqui.Baines@hee.nhs.uk to request a claim form.
This fund is able to support a maximum of 59 claims across the year in the North West of England.