This page was designed to alert users to changes to organisations, workforce roles and data collection can impact the reporting of data. As part of the work to improve our statistics and provide a more complete list of data quality issues that have occurred over the time this data has been produced, a data quality document is now produced alongside the NHS Workforce publication which details ongoing and past events, data quality issues, coding and methodology updates in a chronological order.
On 1 April 2024, NHS Agenda for Change staff saw a reduction in their working week from 37.5 hours to 37 hours.
The process to update the contracted and conditioned hours for this change in Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS) was carried out prior to the NES Data Group taking the March extract. After taking the extract, we became aware that the update had not worked as expected and as a result, the Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) calculations were incorrect. After investigating the issue alongside Atos and NSS, it was discovered the error was due to the full employee records not feeding through to SWISS from the Workforce Intelligence Repository (WIR) database.
A first phase publication was published on Tuesday 4 June 2024 containing:
Following further investigations and in consultation with our users, we released Phase 2 of the NHSScotland Workforce Statistics including Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) on 13 August 2024. This reported on staff who were employed by NHSScotland as at 31 March 2024.
As accurate WTE data was unavailable for the March census,
A full methodology was released alongside the publication. This show the impact of using the above estimations was likely small.
This update included:
Further reductions in the working week are planned in the coming years, and we will monitor the plans for these and ensure our data flows and outputs update accordingly.
March 2023
Over the last few years, Boards in NHS Scotland have adopted the JobTrain system to manage recruitment activity. Most Boards have also moved to using data from JobTrain to complete the national quarterly vacancy surveys. Following recent discussions with some data suppliers, we have become aware of variation in how JobTrain data is being processed and analysed to provide us with survey returns.
From our initial investigations, the largest variation arises in the calculation of vacancy length, which is carried out when reporting the number of vacancies in categories according to how long a post has been vacant, e.g., Vacant less than three months, Vacant between three and six months, etc.
NES is already working with the National Recruitment Reporting short life working group on the use of JobTrain data and definitions. We will continue to work with this group and with data providers in all Boards as we conduct a fuller review of vacancy data in line with our responsibilities for quality assuring administrative data.
We will post fuller plans for the review in due course, but we are highlighting this intention to our users now. In the meantime, we advise caution when using statistics relating to length of vacancy, and if you have any questions or would like to discuss vacancy data with us then please get in touch.
December 2025
During the transition to using data directly sourced from eESS, we found an issue with how Location of Service Delivery information is passed from eESS to SWISS. When someone moved to a job where no Location of Service Delivery was recorded, this change did not update properly in SWISS. As a result, the previous location was still shown.
As such we have removed all Location of Service Delivery data from the Official Statistics publication released on 2 December 2025.
We will continue to review the added value of publishing data describing the location of staff.
August 2021
We have completed a review into the Location of Service Delivery and Country of Qualification data in the NHSScotland Workforce publication to ensure it meets the Official Statistics standard. This means checking the Trustworthiness, Quality and Value as outlined in the Code of Practice for Statistics.
We have analysed the feedback provided by users and a short summary of the outcome of this review, and how it will affect Official Statistics reporting, is below. Full details, including proposed plans, are available.
Please get in touch with us if you have any questions.
Location of Service Delivery (LoSD)
In its current state, LoSD has reduced value to our users because of the quality of data. However, reporting grouped location data would be of value to many users if it can be robust. This is something that has also been recognised in other projects.
In order to understand and assess the requirements for reporting location groupings in more detail we propose running a workshop with key stakeholders. Whilst this assessment is undertaken, we will continue to publish LoSD with a note identifying that it is under review.
Country of Qualification (CoQ)
Responses from data providers highlighted that there are two places which CoQ can be sourced: (i) the professional body section in eESS and (ii) the GMC interface. The first is currently used to report the data. Respondents overwhelmingly do not use CoQ data from this source for reporting or analysis because there is no business need.
We will report CoQ data as it is sourced in the forthcoming Workforce Official Statistics publication (30 June census released 7 September). Thereafter, these data will not be released as part of the publication. We will continue to monitor information requests which could be answered using these data.
Throughout 2020 and 2021 there have been significant challenges in collecting data on the workforce as it adapted and grew in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the reported data in the three publications are extracted from administrative systems such as e:EES, the HR system used by most of the NHS Boards, National Payroll systems, and the CAMHS and Psychology Workforce databases.
There are additional data we report that are collected using bespoke data collection systems, such as vacancies and nursing agency data which are collected using a manual survey completed by the NHS Boards. As this required some manual input from the Boards when they had many other pressures, some indicated that they would not be able to supply these data.
The full detail on data provided is available.
The specific impacts of COVID-19 on the workforce numbers are hard to estimate for a number of reasons. For example, some staff were employed on bank contracts whereas others were not added to local HR systems, which meant that they are not included in the workforce staff in post figures. For a further explanation of this please see the NHSScotland Workforce annual report released in June 2021.
Public Health Scotland was formed on 1 April 2020. This Special NHS Board was formed of staff and functions previously based in NHS Health Scotland and NHS National Services Scotland (NSS). Changes to staff numbers in these organisations can be seen in the data from the 30 June 2020 census date. This change affects the NHSScotland Workforce official statistics publication.
Data from many systems are used to report NHS workforce data. In November 2021, NES has completed the first phase of our new data warehouse, with historic and current NHSScotland employment data now warehoused and a new data model developed to support our publication reports.
The implementation of the warehouse will affect users of the NHSScotland Workforce Official Statistics publication in two main ways.
Changes to reports
In conjunction with the data warehouse project, we reviewed the outputs of the NHSScotland Workforce Official Statistics publication with a group of stakeholders and experts in user experience. After successfully testing with some of our end users, we will be publishing new reports in our next release. The largest change is the introduction of a new single NHSScotland workforce dashboard which will replace most of the previous dashboards and the Excel tables. This dashboard has improved navigation, filtering, table (including export functionality) and chart views of the workforce data.
Changes to data
As part of the development of the data warehouse we reviewed historic employment data and made numerous improvements to how this data is processed and reported. As a result of these improvements there will be some minor differences between the statistics published from the warehouse compared with previously published statistics. This means that this publication will contain a planned revision of employment data (which has impacts on vacancy rate and turnover measures), and sickness absence data.
The changes mentioned above will affect the NHSScotland Workforce Official Statistics released on 7 December 2021 (30 September 2020 census).
The above changes do not affect the Psychology Services Workforce and CAMHS Workforce publications.
June 2020
The Data Group have undertaken an assessment of the publication of granular age data in collaboration with Information Governance. In summary, we acknowledge that the age of workforce staff should be treated as a protected characteristic and is personal data in accordance with data protection law. For this reason, from the 2 June 2020 publication (31 March 2020 census date), we have removed the data available at a level below NHSScotland and staff group. A full assessment is available.
It is important that we continue to supply colleagues working in workforce planning, reporting and intelligence with the appropriate level of age information so that their work is undisrupted. Therefore, Management Information dashboards with full age data are available to authenticated individuals via TDI.
This has been communicated with our colleagues and stakeholders across NHS Boards and the Scottish Government. If you require to access the age data, please get in touch by emailing the Datagroup@nes.scot.nhs.uk.
Prior to September 2018, staff recorded as Locum Appointment in Training (LAT) and Locum Appointment in Service (LAS) were excluded from national workforce statistics. Following the quality assurance exercise which identified historical local recording issues with these staff, there was a broader discussion between ISD and NHS Boards on the merits of including these locum posts in national statistics.
Since NHS Boards view these locums as a key component of the medical workforce, it was agreed to change the reporting cohort so that such staff are included from 30 September 2018 onwards. This change impacts trend data for both the Doctor in Training grade (due to inclusion of staff on a LAT grade) and 'Other' grade (due to inclusion of staff on a LAS grade).
Agency locums are not included in these employment figures.
These changes affect the NHSScotland Workforce official statistics publication.
In July 2018, the Scottish Government announced a change in the employment model for Doctors in Training (DiT). Under the new arrangements, trainees will continue to occupy and move between training posts across all NHS Boards as part of their training, but for administrative purposes, 22 employers are being reduced to four, with trainees benefitting from having one employer for the duration of their training programme. This will apply initially to Junior Doctors, but will later include Dentists in Training. The change in employment model came into force on 1 August 2018.
Turas People was created to support implementation of the lead employer arrangements across Scotland by enabling information to be easily shared across systems and users.
Prior to the lead employer model, DiTs were recorded in SWISS by their board of placement. After implementation, they were recorded under their board of employment. To continue to report by board of placement, data from SWISS are linked to data from Turas People. The methodology of how we do this is available.
This change affects data released from December 2018 onwards in the NHSScotland Workforce official statistics publication (30 September 2018 census).
In August 2022, NES became the lead employer for Vocational Dental Practitioners (VDPs). This change resulted in VDP data coming from SWISS and Turas People. Previously these data were obtained from Turas training programme management only.
From 30 September 2022, the NHSScotland workforce official statistics dashboard reports VDPs for the first time. They are recorded under their employer board, NHS Education for Scotland, community dentistry specialty, and other grade.
In the Dentists table, VDPs are reported under their board of placement. This is identified using the education provider (dental practice) available in Turas People. There are multiple dental practices across Scotland that share the same name but have different locations which has prevented us from assigning them a postcode. As a result, there has been an increase in ‘Unknown’ SIMD.
NHS Scotland CAMHS workforce working in NHS Agenda for Change pay grades were given a reduction in their working hours from 37.5 hours to 37 hours in a week.
As part of updating the hours in the CAMHS database, the following steps were taken to ensure the data held in the database are accurate:
All records of staff working in agenda for change pay grade were automatically updated to 37 hours by the IT service provider prior to the June 2024 extract.
An extract containing the updated information of staff working in agenda change pay grades were sent to data providers.
Data providers were requested to confirm the new hours are accurate and in case of discrepancies, the data were updated in the database.
All calculations used for the analysis were updated to reflect one Whole Time Equivalent is 37 hours.
Three NHS Boards host regional inpatient units: NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Tayside.
In addition from these three Boards, some members of staff also show time recorded working with Inpatient Psychiatric units. Further to a query raised from a health board data user, a review was conducted to check the accuracy of this data by providing an extract of Inpatient Psychiatric unit hours and excluding Psychiatric unit (Community) hours to the data providers to verify the hours and units the members of staff work in. Further work is being done to understand this data.
Following the rebased population estimates published by National Records of Statistics from mid 2011 to mid 2021, the publication data for CAMHS and Psychology workforce per 100,000 of the population and for CAMHS workforce working in target age 0-18 year olds per 100,000 of the population were updated in the December 2024 publications.