ADDITIONAL ROLES REIMBURSEMENT SCHEME

The initiative offers finance to GP practices in England to hire additional people in specific roles, to widen the primary care workforce. The ARRS provides funding to GP practices to cover the salary costs of employing these additional staff members. The programme intends to lessen GPs’ workloads, increase access to primary care services, and give patients more coordinated treatment.

ARRS is probably one of the major reasons why there has been an increase in the number of jobs for Physician Associates in primary care recently. Whilst it has driven demand to employ Physician Associates, not all PA jobs are equal under the scheme.

Some PAs are employed to work in multiple surgeries, basing themselves in a different surgery across the primary care network every day, causing some confusion about how the PA can meet their full potential to provide continuity of care for their patients.

There is also uncertainty around the funding for the ARRS roles after 2023/24 financial year, which has started to generate concern about what might happen to the PAs employed on these ARRS jobs.

It remains to be seen what will be announced beyond 2024 in terms of workforce support funding for primary care and how this might affect the Physician Associate profession.