Physician Associate Graduate Preceptorship
Funding for Physician Associates Preceptorships for new PA graduates in Primary Care
If you are a primary care organisation and have employed a newly qualified Physician Associate (PA), you will be eligible for a £5000 grant for a preceptorship year, funded by Health Education England (HEE).
It is recommended that new preceptorship programmes should be developed in consultation with the Nottinghamshire Alliance Training Hub (NATH), the new registrants and the local PA course providers. Full details of the grant can be downloaded in the Physician Associate Graduate Preceptorship Guidance document.
Once you have drafted the preceptorship programme (based on criteria listed below and following the Guidance document), which also includes supervision and education costs agreed with the provider, share this plan with NATH by emailing it to alliance.hub1@nhs.net. A member of the team will then be able to proceed with next steps to process the payment of the £5000 student support package.
Eligibility criteria
The PA preceptorship programme will need to meet the following criteria to be eligible for the £5000 grant.
The preceptorship programme will be undertaken for a minimum of a 1 year (Whole time equivalent).
Open to all PAs commencing a programme in the year after first gaining registration on the national register.
Normally the preceptorship programme will be wholly in primary care, but a minimum of 50% or 6 months’ full time equivalent in any rotation of placements should be in primary care.
The weekly timetable should include at least 1 dedicated session for education.
Placements should have an educationally approved primary care clinical supervisor who is reasonably available.
The programme should have a mentor available from an appropriate education organiser (e.g. Higher Education Institution (HEI), HEE, NATH) and describe a process for preceptees to feed back on their programme.
The preceptor should have an induction period, an induction meeting with their supervisor, a mid-point and an end of programme review with their supervisor.
The programme should use suitable supportive records of the preceptor’s progress, for example Faculty of Physician Associates (FPA)’s first year guidance.
The preceptor should take part in the employer’s annual appraisal system.
Access to a professional development programme from a local HEI or equivalent should be available which will include alumni activity.
The preceptorship programme should enable the post–holder to engage in multi-professional learning activities.
Where the post-holder’s objectives include a further course of study, this should usually be funded from the support payment. This could be up to the cost of a postgraduate certificate qualification if appropriate for the preceptor and the service context; this funding should be used flexibly to meet the needs of the preceptor.
Individual post–holders will be expected to complete and maintain all the requirements of the UK PA managed voluntary register (PAMVR).
Ideally the preceptorship programme will set out expected outcomes for the preceptor in the form of competence acquisition or a brief curriculum which may be locally derived but based on established national guidance, e.g. the FPA guidance.