We often get asked about how much experience a PA needs before they can work for us as a medical service provider.
Students
As per FPA guidelines we also do offer student roles - please see our jobs board.
Hospital
This does vary on the individual but generally speaking at least 6 months in the chosen hospital specialty.
Primary Care
As a Physician Associate for primary care, this is one year+ employment before you are considered ready and experienced enough to meet both our and any client's expectations.
The most important concept to understand is that locuming is not a training environment, it is service provision.
In primary care unlike in a hospital, you have a lot of autonomy, it's an intense working environment and the systems for referral can be complex. No PA should be even considering this type of work before they are ready i.e. Meet the minimum time requirements and have had a full and in-depth appraisal of your clinical skills and knowledge. (required for the MVR/GMC). Working in this environment too soon has the potential to damage your reputation and the profession as a whole.
We have had PAs who have met the minimum requirements and because of poor clinical or professional decisions relating to inexperience are no longer employed. If you rush into this type of work too soon, it can significantly affect your career.
If however if you are ready and meet the quality control criteria it can be very rewarding in terms of reimbursement and progressing your career and CV.
For example, Joseph our Primary Care Director has now worked in >35 GP practices and 5 WICs!
'The experience gained from locuming has been invaluable in my career, to see how different GP practices run and how different systems and tech (or lack of it) is used means that I would be highly sought after if I were to go into partnership or management positions, as well as having insight into better more efficient clinical working practices, this type of work keeps me always learning'
For further information please apply to a vacancy and come to our online chat to discuss further.
Even if you can’t quite Locum yet you can see what the NHS criteria is for this type of work.