The General Practice Workforce series of Official Statistics presents a snapshot of the primary care general practice workforce. A snapshot statistic relates to the situation at a specific date, which for these workforce statistics is the last calendar day in the reporting period. Until July 2021, the snapshots have been produced each quarter and were a record as of 31 March, 30 June, 30 September, and 31 December. However, from July 2021, we are collecting and publishing data on the general practice workforce on a monthly basis and the snapshot will therefore relate to the last calendar day of each month, including weekends and public holidays.
These statistics present full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount figures by four staff groups, (GPs, Nurses, Direct Patient Care (DPC) and administrative staff), with breakdowns of individual job roles within these high-level groups.
For the purposes of NHS workforce statistics, we define full-time working to be 37.5 hours per week. Full-time equivalent is a standardised measure of the workload of an employed person. Using FTE, we can convert part-time and additional working hours into an equivalent number of full-time staff. For example, an individual working 37.5 hours would be classed as 1.0 FTE while a colleague working 30 hours would be 0.8 FTE.
The term “headcount” relates to distinct individuals, and as the same person may hold more than one role, care should be taken when interpreting headcount figures. Please refer to the Using this Publication section for information and guidance about the contents of this publication and how it can and cannot be used.
England-level time series figures for all job roles are available in the Excel bulletin tables back to September 2015 when this series of Official Statistics began. The Excel file also includes CCG-level FTE and headcount breakdowns for the current reporting period. This publication series also includes CSVs back to September 2015 containing practice-level summaries and CCG-level counts of individuals. Please refer to the Publication content, analysis, and release schedule in the Using this publication section for more details of what’s available.
We have introduced some significant methodological changes in this release and revised the entire time series back to September 2015. Please refer to the Methodological Change Notice for more information.
In addition to the snapshot of the main general practice workforce, Annexes B and C in the Excel Bulletin tables includes figures relating to the number of ad-hoc locum GPs working in general practice and information about their working hours. These figures used to be included in the main totals, but data relating to ad-hoc locum workforce is collected differently and these figures do not constitute a snapshot. As a result, because they are not directly comparable to the snapshot, we are now reporting these figures separately rather than including them in the overall totals.
We are continually working to improve our publications to ensure their contents are as useful and relevant as possible for our users. We welcome feedback from all users to PrimaryCareWorkforce@nhs.net.
