Why don't we have 'assistant doctors' who can prescribe low-level medication?

I don't think they can yet, but it's something I imagine they'll be able to do in the future.

All industries (accounting, law, engineering and so on) have them: the person who is a step below the "qualified" professional and can engage in low-level, basic professional tasks.

In light of the strain on the NHS, especially GP surgeries, why don't we introduce 'assistant doctors'. These would be people who had to undergo some training, but less than that of a doctor and a nurse (not requiring a degree) and it would be largely vocational in nature. They would then be authorised to deal with/prescribe for minor ailments at the GP surgery and hospital.

All industries (accounting, law, engineering and so on) have them: the person who is a step below the "qualified" professional and can engage in low-level, basic professional tasks.

In light of the strain on the NHS, especially GP surgeries, why don't we introduce 'assistant doctors'. These would be people who had to undergo some training, but less than that of a doctor and a nurse (not requiring a degree) and it would be largely vocational in nature. They would then be authorised to deal with/prescribe for minor ailments at the GP surgery and hospital.

If you want to utilise doctors' time more efficiently, I would start by getting rid of the time-consuming non-doctor-specific tasks they are required to do, rather than distributing the more skilled aspects of their job (prescribing).

Any other country would laugh at the fact that we require a doctor to take blood and put in cannulas, something anyone could do with half an hour training and a bit of practice. Also, when seeing a patient in hospital, most of the time is not spent with the patient, but in the office doing paperwork, writing drug charts, doing risk assessments and re-writing clerkings to a different proforma rather than adding to a universal proforma.

We do have physician associates and nurse practitioners, but instead of assisting with the above, it seems their mandate is to cherry pick the best aspects of medicine (learning advanced procedures, clerking patients, spending time in theatre) while they are "not allowed" to write up regular medication or write discharge letters which utterly defeats the point.