Recruitment

The MPAS team at City St George’s, University of London, are seeking secondary care placements for students in 2025/2026 academic year (September 2025 – July 2026) 

Benefits of PAs:

• Extra capacity and continuity in clinical teams
• Increases access to healthcare for patients
• Complements and increases skills in medical discipline
• Familiarity with services, procedures, patients and processes

• Clerking patients (See any patient with an unknown diagnosis)  
• Ward work  
• Clinics pre- and post-op  
• On-calls  
• Referrals  
• Health promotion and disease prevention  
• Research and audits  
• Teaching of peers and students 

Placements and length of attachment required:

• AMU: 9 weeks
• ED: 6 weeks
• Care of the Elderly, General Surgery, Mental Health, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics an Elective (in any speciality not listed): 3 weeks

Placement blocks 2024/2025

• AMU block 1: 08/09/2025 - 07/11/2025
• AMU block 2: 10/11/2025 - 23/01/2026 (includes a 2 week break for Christmas)
• AMU block 3: 26/01/2026 - 27/03/2026
• Elective block: 06/07/2026 - 27/07/2026

All other placements rotate every 3 weeks.

Placement expectations

• Named clinical supervisor for students  
• Dates of availability for placements  
• Supervisors to complete a Clinical Placement Assessment and Case Based Discussions, verify attendance hours and supervise and sign-off on Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (DOPS)  
• Students will be covered under Trust/supervisor indemnity  

The placement tariff is established by NHS England. This will be adjusted for 25-26 and further information confirmed when available.

• Named GP supervisor and physical capacity required to take students  

• Opportunities to see and examine patients  
• Review of patients seen by students by appointed GP supervisor 
• Challenge students on review/examination 
• Opportunities to complete DOPS (Direct Observational Procedural Skills) 
• Appropriate sign off for Placement (pass/fail) competency, attendance and DOPS 

• Expected remuneration: to be confirmed by NHS England
  - In year 1, payments are made at the end of each term.
  - In year 2, the payment is made in full at the end of the academic year in August.
• Student covered under practice/supervisor indemnity  

 

Agree to accommodate student/s for both years of the programme: 

Year 1

Alternate Wednesdays in term time from15 October 2025 to 8 July 2026 for a minimum of 7 clinical hours (excluding breaks). We advise that practices only accept students if they operate a full day of clinics (rather half a day) to maximise student experience.

We encourage practices to support two students, who can alternate their attendance each Wednesday. Schedules will be circulated when student allocations are confirmed in mid to late September.

Year 2

9-week placement block (full-time, Monday – Friday) scheduled between February and July 2027. If practices are supporting two students, they will be allocated to different GP placement blocks in year 2.

Placement tariff

NHS England provide the placement tariff for physician associate placements. For the 2024-25 academic year, the tariff is as follows:

Year 1: £2067 per student (£689 paid at the end of each term)

Year 2: £5685 per student (paid in August at the end of the academic year)

Please note that the above numbers should be doubled if the practice supports two students, as encouraged.