workforce Minimum Dataset collection vehicle guidance IT system user guidance

In an NHS with an increasingly diverse range of providers, collecting comprehensive workforce information will become ever more difficult. In order to address this, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 places a duty on all organisations that deliver care funded by the NHS to provide data on their current workforce and to share their anticipated future workforce needs.

The Workforce Information Architecture (WIA) workstream was established in 2011 by the Department of Health (DH) as part of the wider reform of Education and Training. Within this workstream there was requirement to develop a workforce Minimum Data Set (wMDS), a sub set of the existing National Workforce Data Set (NWD) standard, to support high quality education and training commissioning. This work seeks to ensure that with refinement the minimum data set remains suitable for the purpose of collecting workforce information from all providers of NHS funded services from April 2013. The wMDS meets the requirements of workforce planners and will enable them to effectively plan and commission the future qualified workforce to meet the needs of local providers.

The collection of the wMDS gained approval from the Review of Central Returns (RoCR) and had the following identification ROCR/OR/2225/001MAND for organisations in the Hospital and Community Health Services sector. It is now on the Challenging Burden Service (CBS) list of approved collections and is part of their regular review cycle and is therefore mandated for collection.

The workforce Minimum Data Set Collection Vehicle (wMDSCV) provides a safe and secure mechanism for organisations to meet their obligations and provide this workforce information. This guidance document aims to make the process of submitting this data as straight forward as possible.

More information on the wMDS and its development and implementation guidance is available on the NHS Digital website.

We welcome feedback on this guidance, the wMDSCV and any element of the implementation of the wMDS and you can contact the team via the details at the front of this guidance document.

This guidance is intended to be used by healthcare providers who deliver NHS funded care, whose workforce information is not captured through current monthly workforce information processes handled by NHS Digital.

It includes NHS organisations that do not use the Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system and other providers of NHS funded care, for example social enterprises and independent sector healthcare providers. It may also include elements of primary care including general practitioners, pptometrists, general Dental practitioners and community pharmacists.

NHS organisations that currently have their workforce data extracted directly from the ESR data warehouse are not required to submit data via the wMDSCV as an automatic extraction will continue. Similarly, for general practitioners and optometrists who receive payment via the Exeter system and general fental practitioners on dental services NHS Business Services Authority (BSA).

Additional information for general practitioners and their practice dtaff not available for extract from the NHAIS (Exeter) payments system will be collected via the National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS).  

Finally, if your organisation already supplies workforce information through the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS), then you do not need to provide data for that element of your workforce. If that is the case then you should provide wMDS as per the guidance below for any part of your business not covered by the ASC-WDS and provide your ASC-WDS number for the element of your business that you do return via the ASC-WDS to NHS Digital by e-mail or in the notes accompanying your submission. In this way we aim to remove the risk of duplicated effort and only collect workforce data once.

This guidance will show you how to:

• create the correct file structure to enable the upload of data files
• sign up to the system
• upload data files to the system
• identify and resolve errors and warnings related to your submitted data