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GP Workforce Survey

Overview

All GP practices have a contractual obligation to provide the following data to cover a 12 month period:

  • individual staff data - job roles, contract type, hours/session worked, age and sex
  • finance data - aggregate information on the income and expense of running a general practice (such as rent, insurance and water), the income of practice staff (including salaried GPs), and the income of GP partners
  • workforce data - Aggregate information on absences (sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, parental leave and special leave) and vacancy information for in hours staff employed by the GP Practice

The 2018 Scottish General Medical Services Contract, a requirement which is set out in The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2018, is a joint agreement between the Scottish Government and the BMA setting out the need for robust and reliable data about general practice. 

What data are published?

The NES Datagroup uses the data collected here in the Primary Care Workforce Survey publication. This reports on the WTE of GPs and other staff working within the practice. We also use this data to produce estimates of vacancies within General Practice.

  • GP Whole Time Equivalent 
  • GP Sessions lost to Sickness Absence 
  • GP Practice Locum use
  • Headcount/WTE of Nurses working in GP Practices
  • Headcount/WTE of Health Care Assistants and Phlebotomists

Quality assurance and limitations

The survey is carried out by NSS, who work closely with the GP Practices to quality assure responses to the survey.

The response rate to the survey is not 100% and varies between NHS Boards. To allow year on year comparisons survey weighting and imputation techniques are used.