Using NWRS to view data

To view your staff table in NWRS, you need to log in via the SDCS homepage, select the NWRS collection, go to Submissions, New, and click Create.

You’ll be asked to select your organisation and the part of NWRS you wish to see (GP practice staff, PCN staff or PCN Contracted services the options presented will depend on your access permissions).

This will take you to your staff details page (you won’t need to create any new records) and will present a tabular list of the staff for the part of NWRS you selected at your organisation.

You can then sort, and filter records as required (the table includes leavers and incomplete records). See sorting and customising record view for more information. 

The arrows next to each column title (^) can be used to sort records, and you can view a subset by selecting “show filter”.

Available filters are staff member/locum, staff group, and active/inactive (whether the record relates to a person currently working at the organisation).

You can sort records by each column displayed in the staff table, i.e., first name, last name, staff group, staff role, active/inactive record, record status (submitted/in progress), last modified date, and actions (record complete/incomplete).

The staff table includes current and past staff, listed by status. Any staff with “No” in the (Active) column are leavers, and they can be hidden by applying a filter to this column.

The length of time leavers remain on the system is currently being reviewed and we have a development ticket in progress to implement routine purging of older records.

A status of “Submitted” means that all the mandatory information has been completed and the record will be included in data extracts (and will therefore be included in NHS England's primary care workforce statistics and their NWRS data quality dashboard).

Any records that are marked as “In Progress” are not received by NHS England and you should take action to change this (use the View link to go to the record and complete the staff member’s record).

Users are currently unable to extract line level data from NWRS, but you can view a list of your organisations’ staff within NWRS (on the staff details page),

To do this,:

1. Click Submissions>New and then press Create from the SDCS home page.

2. Select your organisation and the collection type (GP practice staff, PCN staff or PCN Contracted Services).

4. This will take you to the Staff Details page (you don’t need to create any new records) and you will see a tabular list of the staff at your organisation.

5. Use the filters to select active staff only (those currently working for your organisation) and then use the ‘sort’ button (^) for the Status column to bring the ‘In Progress’ records to the top of the list.

6. Only records listed as “Submitted” are extracted and included in our dashboard and statistics.

7. Any marked as “In Progress” are incomplete and do not appear in our data quality dashboard at all.

If you require assistance with your records, please email a request to [email protected] (quoting ‘NWRS in the subject line) and we can go through them with you. Please provide your full name, organisation name, ODS code and details of your enquiry.

Note you can get a list of complete records at your organisation by downloading the appropriate underlying data file from the Data Quality Dashboard (GP practice or PCN). Please go to the dashboard section of the NWRS page.

Any records marked as 'in progress' are missing some mandatory information - they will not be extracted at month end so will not show in our statistics. Please go into the record to review and check - missing information will be highlighted on the relevant form page in red or orange. If you still have issues identifying missing information, then do feel free to email.

A status of ‘Incomplete’ means that there is still missing data in your record. Even though this may not be mandatory information (so the record may have a status of “Submitted”, and be received by NHS England), all missing information should be completed to ensure the data you provide is as accurate as possible and can be better used for workforce planning. More data fields will be made mandatory soon.

Only records listed as ‘Submitted’ in your staff table are extracted and included in our statistics and our Data Quality dashboard.

Any marked as ‘In progress’ are incomplete and will not appear. Please ensure that the record counts for each staff group in the dashboard match your current staff numbers at your organisation. If you’re unsure why your numbers do not match then please contact us at [email protected] (quoting ‘NWRS support call required’ in the subject line, and including your organisation name, ODS code and details of your enquiry).

If you’re unsure why a record is showing as “Incomplete” or “In progress” then please contact us at [email protected] (quoting ‘NWRS support call required’ in the subject line, and including your organisation name, ODS code and details of your enquiry).

NWRS users can only access staff records for the organisations they have permission to enter and maintain data for.

Only data providers can view information in NWRS (and only their own data). Commissioners can use the published workforce statistics for general practices and primary care networks and can also view total number of staff records and various data quality information in the NWRS data quality dashboard.

We publish a wide range of monthly primary care statistics, including interactive reports that allow anyone to see similar breakdowns to those provided on the old NWRS system for the GP practice workforce (PCN workforce coming soon).

These publications include:

• GP Practice workforce
• Primary Care Network workforce.

Data quality information, and indicative staff numbers, are also available via our NWRS Data Quality Dashboard which is updated every week.