The Role
The role was developed in the USA to support GP surgeries. General Practice Assistants (also called Medical Assistants) – work alongside GPs to provide a support role, carrying out routine administrative tasks and basic clinical tasks. They may prepare patients for examination, take information from them and follow-up consultations, enabling the GP to focus on the patient and a smooth running of appointments.
Benefits for the Practice
- Improve patient flow in the surgery
- Increase GPs’ time efficiency
- Have a positive impact on GP retention and job satisfaction
- Reduction of average waiting times
Benefits for the Patient
- Improve patient access
- Improve efficiency in patient management
- Improve speed of patient letters being processed
- Improve safeguarding alerts
Training & Development
GPAs usually work in general practice and have good notions of patient care. They will need to have a DBS enhanced level check and to commit to a 6-9 month course to obtain a GP Assistant Certificate qualification. The programme is based on a framework that covers 2 clinical and 3 non-clinical areas:
- Care Certificate (clinical)
- Clinical (clinical)
- Communications (non-clinical)
- Administration (non-clinical)
- Managing health records (non-clinical)