Psychology Workforce NHSScotland

This release by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) provides a quarterly update, as at 30 September 2020,
on the Psychology Services workforce staff in post, vacant posts and trainees.

Figures are presented as headcount (actual number of staff) and whole time equivalent (WTE),
which adjusts the figures to take account of part-time working.

As at 30 September 2020:

• Within Psychology Services in NHSScotland, there were a total of 1,266.9 WTE (1,539 headcount) clinical staff in post. This is an increase of 99.7% (632.5 WTE) from September 2006 and 7.7% (90.8 WTE) from September 2019, but a decrease of 2.0% (26.3 WTE) from the previous quarter.
• The WTE of All Applied Psychologists increased by 0.5 WTE from the previous quarter: 889.7 WTE in September compared to 889.2 in June. The biggest reductions in WTE were seen in Clinical Associates in Applied Psychology: 139.2 WTE in September 2020, which is -9.9%,15.3 WTE less than in June, and in Psychology Assistants: 78.3 WTE, which is -10.2% (-8.9 WTE) less than in June 2019. This may reflect staff leaving these roles to undertake doctoral training.
• Out of the total of 117.9 WTE advertised vacancies, 59.5% (70.1 WTE) had been advertised for less than three months, 27.1% (32.0 WTE) for three to six months and 13.4% (15.8 WTE) for longer than six months. The vacancy rate was 8.5%, compared to 10.8% in September 2019. A further 30.9 WTE vacancies were approved but not yet advertised.
• 70 students began training for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology in 2020, compared to 59 in 2019 and an average yearly intake of 56. Of the 508 graduates from this course between 2007 and 2019 for whom National Insurance numbers were available, 373 (71.9%) were employed in NHSScotland as at 30^th September 2020.