The data within these reports relate to staff paid by English NHS organisations via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). ESR is a payroll and human resources system which, since April 2008, contains staff records for all NHS employed staff in England. Statistics from this data source are only available for September 2009 onwards. An extract is taken for each month’s data from the ESR Data Warehouse 6 weeks after the month end. This delay is to allow all outstanding payments to be processed. The most recent 12 months of data are combined so that annual earnings estimates can be calculated.
The following NHS staff groups are not included on the ESR system:
- GPs, GP Practice staff and other primary care providers e.g. dentists
- Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust the single organisation which does not use ESR.
Figures are based on the most recent twelve months of data and are presented by staff group in the publication (Tables 1 & 2). This publication also includes tables which examine the non-basic pay elements in greater details (Table 3). We welcome comments and suggestions for special topics of interest from users of workforce information.
Recent responses to requests for additional analysis
Every month NHS Digital produces a range of additional work for customers that may be of interest to other users of NHS workforce statistics. This work is available on the NHS Digital Supplementary information webpage which is continually updated.
Revisions and Issues
As expected with provisional statistics, some figures may be revised from month to month as issues are uncovered and resolved. Users are advised to always use the latest published tables for their analyses.
March 2020 revision
Prior to the March 2020 issue of this publication, due to a system error in the warehouse we collect pay data from - not an error in the pay system itself – we did not have data on the “Other Payments” element of NHS Staff earnings for the data months of June and July 2019. Therefore, any previously published figures which included the “Other Payments” data were a little lower than they should have been for any set of 12 monthly mean figures that include June/July 2019 data. The tables affected were those for Total Earnings, Non-Basic Pay, and Other Payments. This issue has now been rectified and data for June 2019, July 2019, August 2019 and September 2019 have been updated within the tables to reflect this.
March 2018 revision
The upper pay limit of the medical Core Training grade was increased on the 1st April 2017 but this increase was not reflected in our processing of this data which led to an under estimate of basic pay per full time equivalent for this grade for all statistics that include data months from April 2017 onwards.
The basic pay per full time equivalent statistics have been revised from January 2016 to December 2017 to reflect the higher limit. The revised time series is shown in publications showing data from March 2018.
June 2017 revision
In 2015 NHS Digital undertook a consultation covering its HCHS workforce statistics. The recommendations from this consultation have been applied to HCHS staff in post statistics and in June 2017 HCHS earnings statistics, showing figures up to the end of March 2017, were brought in line with the recommendations.
This changed how some organisations are classified, how staff are grouped and how we identify some additional bank payments.
A better understanding of the changes to groupings may be gained from our NHS HCHS staff in post statistics at https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics, and from the document detailing the consultation results available here:
http://content.digital.nhs.uk/media/20450/Statistical-change-notice-relating-to-NHS-HCHS-in-England-workforce-statistics/doc/statnoticehchs.docx
The NHS Earnings Statistics publication now displays data for NHS Trusts and CCGs and NHS Support Organisations and Central Bodies separately.
Further Information
If you are interested in statistics that are not contained within our publications or wish to discuss any related matters please contact NHS Digital with your requests, comments and suggestions via:
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 0300 303 5678
Post: NHS Digital, 7 and 8 Wellington Place, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 4AP.