General Practice Workforce - 30 June 2020
Official statistics- Publication Date:
- 27 Aug 2020
- Geographic Coverage:
- England
- Geographical Granularity:
- Clinical Commissioning Groups, GP practices, Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships, Regional health body, Clinical Commissioning Regions
- Date Range:
- 30 Sep 2015 to 30 Jun 2020
Impact of the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) on data collection and completion
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been some disruption to our regular statistical production.
Following a comprehensive review of the completeness and coverage of the data extract from 31 March 2020, we identified a likely under-reporting of data changes along with fewer new records than expected, which appears to have continued in the data extract from 30 June 2020. These findings suggest that the data extracts from 31 March and 30 June 2020 are not as complete and up to date as we would normally expect.
However, we believe that the headline figures included in the bulletin remain of immediate use, even when balanced against these data quality considerations. We are mindful that when the system is updated, we may need to revise the figures but for now, we are supporting the NHS with the best picture we have about the NHS general practice workforce, and we all remain committed to providing the best and most accurate and useful information possible to support the NHS and to serve the public good.
As part of a wider exercise to streamline our reports, this release is different to the usual June statistics as it now contains a standard set of Bulletin tables which will form the consistent core of the publication. We are continuing to review the entire structure and content of our regular series and our proposals for the next phase of changes are outlined in more detail on the Notice of Changes page. Please send any feedback on these proposals to PrimaryCareWorkforce@nhs.net with “GP Workforce” in the subject line of your email.
This publication contains the new Bulletin tables, and in addition to the background data quality statement that accompanies all releases, we have continued to include a section that details any data quality issues that are specific to the current release.
Published: 27 August 2020 09:30 AM
Summary
This quarterly report presents data about GPs, Nurses, Direct Patient Care and Admin/Non-Clinical staff working in General Practice in England, along with information on their patients and practices.
In the General Practice Workforce 30 September 2019 publication, released 28 November 2019, we produced a revised General Practice Workforce time series incorporating improvements in the estimation methodology and in the collection of GP registrar and GP locum data. The revised time series figures are not comparable with earlier figures published prior to 28 November 2019 and therefore all the figures released in the General Practice Workforce 30 September 2019 publication and later publications supersede the earlier releases, all of which we have archived and advise should no longer be used.
Information about the contents of this publication and how it can and cannot be used, can be found in the Report tab. Our publication includes information on recent and planned changes as well as highlighting future developments. We are continually working to improve our publication to ensure the components are as useful and relevant as possible for our users.
Currently, we are reviewing the contents of the General Practice Workforce series, to rationalise the content of the files produced and identify areas for improvement. In May, we published our proposals for the first changes which are coming into effect in this publication with the introduction of a new, consistent, standard set of Bulletin Tables for all reporting periods which will form the core of each publication. These new tables replace the spreadsheets previously published for March and September data, and the four high-level staff group tables that we used to publish for June and December. This means that the same content will be included in the main Bulletin Tables for every release.
Information on the next phase of changes - to come into effect in the next publication of September 2020 workforce data - can be found in the Notice of Changes tab. We welcome feedback from all our users on these proposals, by email to: PrimaryCareWorkforce@nhs.net.
From the publication of September 2020 data, we will also be moving from publishing quarterly data to publishing monthly data. We will aim to publish the new monthly publications as close to the end of the month following extraction as possible, and a clearer timetable will be produced as the production stabilises.
Various data breakdowns are available in the accompanying Excel and CSV files, including time series and breakdowns by characteristics such as age and gender. Data is also presented regionally and at practice level for June 2020 in the accompanying CSVs.
This publication also features an interactive dashboard which allows users to explore the underlying data in a variety of ways. This can be accessed by clicking on the dashboard link below.
Links to other publications presenting healthcare workforce information can be found under Related Links.
Key Facts
Latest figures, for 30 June 2020:
is a standardised measure of the workload of an employed person and allows for the total workforce workload to be expressed as the equivalent number of full-time staff. 1.0 FTE equates to full-time work of 37.5 hours per week, an FTE of 0.5 would equate to 18.75 hours per week.
33,515 Full-time equivalent (1.8% (600) fewer than June 2019)
27,605 Full-time equivalent (2.3% (651) fewer than June 2019)
26,435 Full-time equivalent (1.9% (506) fewer than June 2019)
16,774 Full-time equivalent (2.6% (426) more than June 2019)
14,367 Full-time equivalent (9.1% (1,199) more than June 2019)
68,657 Full-time equivalent (2.2% (1,495) more than June 2019)
These figures include estimates for practices not providing complete and/or valid data. The percentage of practices requiring full or partial estimates are shown in Table 1 in the Report tab.
Comments and feedback are welcomed by NHS Digital, via enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (clearly stating GP Workforce as the subject heading) or 0300 303 5678.
Interactive Tool
The dashboard includes a variety of interactive charts displaying different characteristics of staff providing services at traditional General Practices in England. Alongside workforce data, this includes information on the practices and their patients.
This tool is in Microsoft PowerBI which does not fully support all accessibility needs. If you need further assistance, please contact us for help.