NWRS responsibilities

The senior responsible manager at the primary care organisation (Primary Care Network or GP practice)  is responsible but data entry and maintenance can be delegated locally.

The manager or equivalent must approve access to the system for the delegated employee if a new account is being created.

Since provision of primary care workforce data is part of the NHS contract for primary care health care providers, and accuracy of NWRS records is the responsibility of the data provider, it is important to regularly review data. 

You do not have to input data every month as NWRS is a live system and records are retained. Organisations should log in at least once per month (preferably shortly before data extraction on the last day of each month) to check that their information reflects the current staffing position.

We recommend that any changes are made on the system promptly on a case-by-case basis to save time updating before extraction. Last login and last modified dates are monitored by NHS England regional leads, who may contact registered NWRS users if there has not been any recent NWRS activity.

You may have seen a reference in the GP contract 2024/25 letter 'Arrangements for the GP contract in 2024/25' stating that NWRS information must be provided on a quarterly basis. Edits were made to the letter on 19 July 2024 to reflect the correct collection schedules as set out in the GP Contract Regulations and the Network Contract DES specification: '22. Practices and PCNs will be required to submit workforce information on a monthly basis to the National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) via changes to the GP contract and the Network Contract DES'.

The NWRS is fully GDPR compliant and a summary of why and how we process your data, including your rights, can be found on the NWRS GDPR information page.

Personal information on individuals is not published nor is it shared with other organisations.

Only named individuals at NHS England responsible for the NWRS system and publication of its data have access to data extracts.

We collect an individual’s professional registration number (where applicable), date of birth, name and national insurance number (NINO) as ways of uniquely identifying an individual. A unique number is required to enable the accurate counting of the total number of individuals providing services across the whole NHS.