The academy, which represents 24 medical royal colleges, said there has been a growing campaign against their use “potentially fuelled by unsubstantiated claims of social media”.
Chair Dr Jeanette Dickson said: “We want an independent, evidence-based, rapid review to help us make a decision about how best to delineate their roles and where they might best fit into the system.
“What’s important is that we can objectively assess the data around safety, efficiency and cost effectiveness and make a judgement about what precise roles in healthcare may be suitable for them and what levels of responsibility they might be safely given based on the actual evidence.”
The academy said it was not its job to say how and who should set up the inquiry, but added it needed to be robust and independent in the way the ones by Lord Ara Darzi, into NHS performance, and Dr Hilary Cass, into gender care for children, were. They were set up by the government and NHS England respectively.