Primary Care Workforce Recruited through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), 1 October 2024 – 30 April 2025 [Management Information]

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme was introduced in England in 2019 to improve access to general practice. Through the scheme, primary care networks (PCNs) can claim reimbursement for the salaries (and some on costs) of new roles within the multidisciplinary team, selected to meet the needs of the local population. In expanding general practice capacity, the scheme improves access for patients, supports the delivery of new services and widens the range of offers available in primary care.

In October 2024 the ARRS was expanded to provide ring-fenced funding to enable PCNs to quickly employ over 1,000 additional GPs. To track progress towards this target, it was necessary to count the number of GPs employed through the ARRS. Although this target has now been met, it remains important to track the workforce recruited through the scheme.

The ARRS claims portal, through which PCNs submit claims for reimbursement for their eligible employees each month, has been used to calculate headcount and FTE figures for GPs recruited via the ARRS.

As claims can be made and backdated over several months, the figures are subject to change as retrospective claims are submitted. Due to the short time period between the month-end and the data extraction date, FTE figures for the most recent claim month are particularly affected by this data lag. Consequently, they represent a significant undercount and reflect only the FTE from claims that had been recorded and approved by the extraction date.

GPs recorded via the National Workforce Reporting Service

PCNs have been instructed by NHS England to record their ARRS GPs as salaried GPs as part of their National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) submissions. Therefore, GPs recruited through the scheme should be included in the salaried GP headcount and full-time equivalent (FTE) figures in the existing tables in the Primary Care Network Workforce publication. However, as the NWRS does not capture workforce funding streams, it is not possible to distinguish salaried GPs recruited via the ARRS from those employed through other routes.

Additionally, although the ARRS applies only to PCNs and the issued guidance specifies that these GPs are to be recorded in the PCN module of the NWRS, it is possible that some GPs claimed for through the scheme have been recorded as working for practices and are therefore included in the General Practice Workforce series of statistics.

Important notes on these publication tables

• Data extracted from the ARRS claims portal is subject to lag, with PCNs able to claim for their GPs several months in arrears. For this reason, the figures presented in these tables are provisional and will increase for future releases, as retrospective claims are submitted.
• Headcount totals may not equal the sum of components, due to individuals working across multiple PCNs and areas.
• Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) refers to the proportion of full time contracted hours that the post holder is contracted to work. 1 would indicate they work a full set of hours (37.5), 0.5 that they worked half time.
• PCNs listed are those that were open and active in the most recent full month. Any PCNs which closed prior to this date are excluded from tables 3 and 4 (PCN level tables), but headcount and FTE from those PCNs is included in tables 1 and 2 (England, region and ICB-level). Therefore, totals from the PCN-level data may not equal those at England, region and ICB-level.
• As headcount figures cover the entire period, while FTE figures are specific to each claim month, there is no inferable relationship between headcount and FTE figures and participation rates cannot be calculated using these figures