Primary Care Network Workforce, 30 June 2022

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:

• NHS England - ICBs in England
• Organisation Data Service (ODS) - ICBs

The new 106 Sub-ICB Locations have retained the same codes as the 106 CCGs they have replaced. Similarly, the 42 ICBs retain the codes of the 42 STPs. In the regional bulletin tables and CSVs accompanying this release, the names of the Sub-ICBs and ICBs have been presented. The official naming convention for the Sub-ICB Locations is the name of the parent ICB followed by the old CCG code. However, to aid users, where there is more than one Sub-ICB Location at an ICB we have suffixed the Sub-ICB name with the name of the CCG they have replaced.

Though there is a one-to-one match of CCGs to Sub-ICB Locations and STPs to ICBs, boundary changes within some areas have resulted in some PCNs moving to different Sub-ICB Locations and ICBs than they would previously have been situated. This means that to allow for historical comparisons, regional time series data needs to be revised, with PCNs mapped to the Sub-ICBs and ICBs they belong to from July 1 2022. 

For this release, CSVs for all reporting periods back to March 2020 have been reproduced to reflect the new structure. National totals are unaffected by this remapping but some figures at Sub-ICB (previously CCG) and ICB (previously STP) levels may differ to those previously published.

Changes to CSV columns - name changes and removal of HEE region fields

In the CSVs, column names have been changed from CCG_Code and CCG_name to Sub_ICB_Code and Sub_ICB_name and from STP_Code and STP_Name to ICB_Code and ICB_Name.

The publication CSVs have historically presented Health Education England Region names and codes for reference, despite these regions ceasing to be official geographies a number of years ago.  We have consulted users  and have taken the decision to remove this information from the CSVs, not least because it is not possible to remap PCNs to HEE regions to account for boundary changes.

Users who import the files into their own platforms will need to ensure any required edits to processes are updated accordingly, to account for these changes.

New publication - Primary Care Workforce Quarterly Update

In May 2022 we introduced a quarterly publication using additional data sources to complement this publication, which brings together FTE staff working in Primary Care Networks, including ad-hoc locums, and those working in General Practice. 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.

Data collection and publication frequency

To ensure that our statistics continue to deliver maximum benefit to users, we are currently reviewing the publication frequency of this series of statistics. We expect to have completed this review by the end of summer 2022 and will notify users of any changes via this page.