Publication, Part of General Practice Workforce
General Practice Workforce, 30 June 2022
Official statistics
NHS Geography Updates
Please note that as Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) were established as statutory bodies from 1st July 2022, this publication will no longer present data at CCG and STP level. From this publication onwards, data will be aggregated to Sub-ICB Location, and ICB level. For further information on these changes please see the following links:
See the Changes in this series section for more information on how these changes are reflected in the files which accompany this publication.
28 July 2022 09:30 AM
Corrections to percentages of each group of fully qualified female and male GPs joining or leaving during December 2020 to December 2021
The GP Joiners and Leavers Excel tables file was replaced on 30 May 2023 to amend incorrect figures in Table 2b. A formatting error meant the Percentages of each group Joining or Leaving within the time period for females and males were incorrect for both joiners and leavers for December 2020 - December 2021. These errors have been corrected in the replacement file. The all genders figures were unaffected.
Labelling errors in column A of Tables 2a and 2b have also been corrected, by removing the word 'Permanent' to now correctly refer to the applicable group of GPs as Fully Qualified GPs (excludes GPs in Training Grades).
30 May 2023 00:00 AM
Summary
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 were produced each quarter and were a record as of 31 March, 30 June, 30 September, and 31 December. However, we now collect and publish data on the general practice workforce on a monthly basis and the snapshot therefore relates to the last calendar day of each month, including weekends and public holidays. This monthly snapshot reflects the general practice workforce at 30 June 2022.
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 Sub-ICB Location-level FTE and headcount breakdowns for the current reporting period. CSVs containing practice-level summaries and Sub-ICB Location-level counts of individuals are also available. Please refer to the Publication content, analysis, and release schedule in the Using this publication section for more details of what’s available.
In addition to the snapshot of the main general practice workforce, Annexes B and C in the Excel Bulletin tables include 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 the 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 now report these figures separately rather than including them in the overall totals.
In May 2022 we introduced a quarterly publication using additional data sources to complement this publication, which brings together FTE staff working in general practice, including ad-hoc locums, and those working in Primary Care Networks. The first experimental edition was released on 19 May, initially presenting FTE primary care workforce statistics for the direct patient care, nurse and admin/non-clinical staff groups. Tables covering the GP staff group were added to the publication on 16 June, once final ad-hoc locum data became available. See https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/primary-care-workforce-quarterly-update for more information.
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 [email protected].
Key Facts
Full-Time Equivalent is a standardised measure of the workload of an employed person and allows for the total workforce workload to be expressed as the equivalent number of full-time staff. 1.0 FTE equates to full-time work of 37.5 hours per week, an FTE of 0.5 would equate to 18.75 hours per week.
35,449
FTE GPs - 1.4% (474) more than June 2021
27,558
FTE Fully qualified GPs (excludes GPs in Training Grade) - 1.6% (442) fewer than June 2021
26,859
FTE Qualified permanent GPs (excludes GPs in Training Grade and Locums) – 0.6% (159) fewer than June 2021
16,632
FTE Nurses - 0.01% (2) more than June 2021
15,480
FTE Direct patient care staff - 8.9% (1,259) more than June 2021
73,006
FTE Admin / non-clinical staff - 3.9% (2,761) more than June 2021
Resources
Last edited: 30 May 2023 10:55 am