This survey and related reporting are currently on hold while NES reviews the reporting requirements and suitable methods for data collection. More information in Limitations below.
Overview
A consultant job plan is a prospective agreement that sets out a consultant's duties, responsibilities and objectives for the coming year. The duties performed by each consultant are called Programmed Activities (PAs), and can be categorised under four types: Direct Clinical Care (including out of hours), Supporting, Additional, and Extra.
Data for consultants PAs has been provided annually through a survey completed by NHS Boards from 2005 to 2019. This survey collects aggregated information by medical specialty and PA type for the number of consultants in post at 30 September.
What data are published
These survey data are used to report the following aggregated information by medical specialty and PA type for consultants in post at 30 September.
These data are released annually in December as part of the NHSScotland Workforce official statistics publication.
There are a number of known issues with this collection and reporting (see quality assurance section below).
Background
The duties performed by each consultant are called Programmed Activities (PAs) and can be categorised under four types: Direct Clinical Care, Supporting, Additional, and Extra.
Usually, each PA equates to four hours. So if a consultant is working full time (40 hours / week), they will have 10 PAs across DCCPA and SPA. Duties under EPA and APA are considered in addition to your contracted number of PAs.
Further information
An overview of job planning is available at the British Medical Association.
Quality assurance
A number of steps are in place to ensure that these data are reported accurately.
Limitations
There are a number of known issues with this data collection.
This survey and related reporting are therefore currently on hold while NES reviews the reporting requirements and reliable method for data collection. There has been a delay in this process due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting resourcing.