Primary Care Workforce Quarterly Update, 30 September 2024, Experimental Statistics

The use of ARRS data to supplement NWRS data for the purposes of generating quarterly figures is not seen as a long-term solution. The strategic aim is to be able to derive FTE data for the quarterly update publication primarily from the NWRS collection tool. As such we intend to keep the use of ARRS data under close review and will consider ceasing the publication of the collated figure if any one of the three criteria below are met.

1. There is an improvement in the completeness of data submitted to NWRS.
2. The difference in reported FTE between the collated figure and NWRS alone narrows sufficiently that the use of ARRS claims data is no longer warranted.
3. The ARRS scheme comes to an end, meaning that claims data are no longer available.

We will also continue to monitor the ARRS data to establish to what extent time elapses between some claims being submitted and approved. This is to help in assessing if it always appropriate to use the first available set of claims data as discussed in the Methodology page.