Purpose
The purpose of this document is to describe the data sources and the methodologies used within the NHS Scotland workforce official statistics publications. Where relevant we reference further information on Turas Data Intelligence website.
Introduction
The data published on the NHS and primary care workforce is collected from several administrative systems that are used to manage the employment, pay, recruitment and management of contracted staff.
Within the NES Data Group we extract data from these systems, process and store these in our Data Warehouse.
We apply the Quality Assurance of Administrative Data (QAAD) to each system, which involves assessing, working and addressing data completeness and accuracy with data suppliers.
NHS Scotland employment
Overview
| Data Source Name |
SWISS |
| Update Frequency |
Quarterly |
| Census dates |
31 March, 30 June, 30 September, 31 December |
Data source
All NHS Boards within NHS Scotland use eESS as their main HR system and ePayroll as their payroll system. Before eESS, NHS Boards used different HR Systems. The Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS) brings HR data together with data from ePayroll.
Workforce information was first captured through SWISS in 2007 for the data as at 30th September 2007.
SWISS holds individual level information for all staff directly paid by NHS Boards and includes variables on the employee, their current post(s), absences and earnings. SWISS is refreshed from eESS on a daily basis and from ePayroll on a weekly basis.
Now all NHS Boards use eESS we will be switching to using eESS data instead of SWISS. This is planned for the second half of 2025.
Methods
NES extracts employment data from SWISS on the second Tuesday of the month for staff employed on the last day of the previous month. For example, an extract of all staff at 31 March 2021 was taken on 13 April 2021. The lag between the census date and extraction date is to allow time for the source systems to be updated. The extraction dates are published on the data provision timetable.
An employment must have:
- a start date that is on or before the census date
- an end date that is on or after the census date OR is NULL
- Conditioned hours greater than 0
- a Contract types of: Permanent job share, Permanent, Permanent secondment, Fixed term, Fixed term job share, Fixed term/Temporary, Fixed term secondment, or Honorary (medical staff only)
Furthermore, not all staff recorded on local HR and payroll systems are directly employed by NHS Scotland; we therefore run a series of exclusions in agreement with NHS Boards. These are:
- Staff on detail codes 8171 (Modern Apprentice) and 8175 (Widows Pension Payment)
- Staff on Payscales T024A and T024B (Widows Pension Payment)
- Medical and dental staff with no medical grade recorded, and cannot be matched using the pay grade:
- staff who are on the HR system within NHS Ayrshire & Arran, who are employed by the council but have some HR administrative responsibilities for NHS staff.
Once data are extracted, they are transformed and loaded in to a Data Warehouse within NES. Transformation includes merging with the Resident doctor (previously known as Doctors in Training) data sourced from NES’s Turas People system which allows accurate reporting of board of placement and specialty. Employment data are stored from 2009.
There are two measures of employment used in our publications.
Headcount
An individual staff member is identified by their National Insurance Number.
Headcount is the distinct count of National Insurance Numbers. If an employee has more than one employment contract they’ll only be counted once in each group. This means that adding up headcount sub-totals may produce different results than the published grand totals. For example, if a staff member is employed in two NHS Boards, they would be counted once in each NHS Board, and once in NHS Scotland.
Whole Time Equivalent
Whole time equivalent (sometimes referred to as Full Time Equivalent) is defined as:
\[
\frac{ContractedHours}{ConditionedHours}
\]
where Contracted Hours is the number of hours that an employee is contracted to work in one week, and conditioned hours is the number of hours that a full-time employee would work.
The conditioned hours for Agenda for Change staff have changed over time:
The conditioned hours for medical and dental and senior management staff is 40 hours.
What data are published?
Employment data from 2009 are reported for 31 March, 30 June, 30 September, and 31 December censuses each year.
The data show the number of staff employed by NHS Scotland by location (NHS Board), occupation (job family, sub job family or medical specialty), AfC band or medical grade, contract type and demographic (sex, age group, median age) indicators.
In addition to these variables, data are used to report the following:
Data quality
NES extracts employment data on the second Tuesday of the month for staff employed on the last day of the previous month. The lag between the census date and extraction date is to allow time for the source systems to be updated. However, sometimes the extract may include people who are employed but not recorded and people who are not employed but are recorded. Overall, the number included or excluded in error is small and is consistent over time. We do not routinely revise data for previous time points when data is updated or corrected at source.
Data related to employees’ pay, such as WTE and band or grade, is often high quality as it is monitored by both employee and employer. Data describing occupations, whilst of high quality, is more susceptible to errors.
Occupation information for agenda for change, or non-medical, staff are available in Job Family and Sub Job Family. The occupational coding structure within NHS Scotland is guided by the NHS Scotland Job Evaluation Good Practice Guide and NHS National Job profiles. However, some of the sub job families recently added to the national job profiles are not available within eESS.
Medical specialty is the specialty of the area that doctor is working in, this may be different from the specialty that they are registered with on the GMC, or different from the specialty of the training programme they are on. This allows for the reporting of the number of doctors who are delivering a service within an area. Resident doctors who are perhaps on a general medical core training programme, but working in a Obstetrics and Gynaecology department will be recorded under that category, alongside consultants, and Foundation Year 1 and 2 doctors who are also working there. This may undercount some specialties were a consultant with a more specific specialty is working. For example, a consultant on the psychotherapy specialist register may be working in an General Psychiatry area.
Medical Grade is used to report a doctors grade. When this is not complete, we use Pay Grade.
Demographic data on age and sex is likely to be accurate but relies on individual employees completing paperwork correctly when they start. In a small number of cases, an individual’s demographic data is updated in source systems due to corrections. Data on other equality and diversity characteristics aren’t mandatory and are less well completed.
Our quality assurance processes describe how we work with providers to maximise the quality of the data.
We assessed our processes in January 2025 against the Quality Assurance of administrative data framework.
Resident doctors and Dentists in Training
Overview
| Data Source Name |
SWISS, Turas Programme Management, Turas People |
| Update Frequency |
Quarterly |
| Census dates |
31 March, 30 June, 30 September, 31 December |
In July 2018, the Scottish Government announced a new lead employer model for Resident Doctors (previously known as Doctors in Training) on training programmes. This means that these doctors will continue to move around placements but they will have one employer for the duration of their training programme. The change in employment model came into force on 1 August 2018.
Four NHS Boards act as the lead employer:
- NHS Grampian for the North Region
- NHS Lothian for the East Region
- NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde for the West Region
- NHS Education for Scotland for General Practitioners, Dentists in Training, Vocational Dental Practitioners, and other National Programmes
Dentists in Training were added to the lead employer model in September 2021 and Vocational Dental Practitioners (VDPs) were added in August 2022.
Data source
Turas Training Programme Management (TPM) holds information on trainees, trainers and programmes for several staff groups, such as medical, dental, pharmacy, psychology, healthcare science, and optometry.
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.
Data from Turas TPM flows to Turas People and pre-populates records of medical and dental trainees and details of their training programme. NHS Boards and trainees are then able to update employment details and manage contracts throughout placements through Turas People.
Some data in Turas People are more accurate and up-to-date when compared with SWISS. Importantly, after the lead employer model implementation the NHS Board variable in SWISS records Employment Board instead of Placement Board.
Methods
A snapshot of the Turas People database is extracted on the first day of the month for Resident doctors, Dentists in Training and VDPs employed on the last day of the month before. This extract is merged with data from SWISS and loaded into the NES data warehouse. There is no common identifier that is complete in both data sources. We therefore merge these data using either Pay Number or a combination of National Staff Id (a unique id within SWISS), National Insurance Number, Date of Birth, and Surname.
The variables taken from Turas People are: NHS Board (Placement Board); Specialty; Grade; Age; and Sex. If we are unable to find a Resident doctor, Dentists in Training or VDP in Turas People, then the variables from SWISS are used.
By merging SWISS and Turas People we continue to report by Placement Board.
What data are published?
Employment data for Resident doctors from Turas People was first used in the NHS Scotland Workforce Official Statistics publication released in December 2018 (30 September 2018 census). Dentists in Training data from Turas People followed in 31 December 2021 (30 September 2021 census). We report the number of Resident doctors and Dentists in Training employed by NHS Scotland by location (NHS Board), medical and dental specialty, medical grade, contract type and demographic (sex, age group, median age) indicators.
From 30 September 2022, VDPs are reported for the first time in the main Employment section of the Dashboard, under NHS Education for Scotland (Employer Board), community dentistry specialty, and other grade. VPDs are also reported on the Dentist tab updated in June and December.
Data quality
The data for TPM is entered by trainers, trainees and staff administering the NHS Boards. Data is of high quality.
Each load of the merged Turas People and SWISS data are manually reviewed to identify any issues. There are a small number of resident doctors in Turas People that cannot be matched to a record in SWISS. This is likely explained by records not being updated, in either SWISS, TPM or Turas People, in time for the extract.
Resident doctors and Dentists in Training are included in our quality assurance processes.
Equality and diversity
| Data Source Name |
SWISS |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
31 March |
Data source
Information about protected characteristics (disability status, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and transgender status, age and sex) is collected for employees of NHS Scotland to assist with equalities monitoring and reporting.
Data reported are based on self-reporting by staff in NHS Scotland. Data are collected via staff engagement forms when people join or change boards within NHS Scotland, or via the e:you questionnaire exercise undertaken for all NHS Scotland staff in post. Completion of the questionnaire exercise is optional, and response rates vary across the country. The questionnaire questions are detailed below.
Sex and date of birth are recorded for all staff in post. For sex, the options available are Male or Female. Age group is calculated from date of birth.
This data is recorded in eESS, and is available in SWISS to allow for our reporting.
Methods
The current questions and answer options in the staff questionnaire are as follows. Where there is no answer provided, the response is recorded as “Not known”.
- Disabled: The question asked is: “Do you have a condition/disability that has lasted/may last 12 months or more?” and the answer can be selected from: Yes, No, Don’t know, Prefer not to say.
- Ethnic Group: The question asked is: “What is your ethnic group?” and the answer can be selected from a list of options including specified ethnic groups (such as White – Scottish or Asian – Indian, Indian Scottish or Indian British), Mixed or Multiple Ethnic Group, Other, Don’t know and Prefer not to say.
- Religion: The question asked is: “What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?” and the answer can be selected from a list of options including named religions (such as Church of Scotland or Buddhist), No religion, Other, Don’t know and Prefer not to say.
- Sexual Orientation: The question asked is: “Which of the following options best describes how you think of yourself?” and the answer can be selected from a list of options including Bisexual, Gay or Lesbian, Heterosexual, Other, Don’t know and Prefer not to say.
- Transgender: The question asked is: “Have you, are you or do you plan to undergo gender reassignment (changing sex)?” and the answer can be selected from: Yes, No, Don’t know, Prefer not to say.
From 2023, equality and diversity data are extracted for NHS Scotland workforce at 31 March from SWISS using the same inclusion criteria for the employment extracts. The data are extracted on the second Tuesday after the 31 March, and then loaded into the data warehouse, where they are linked with employment data.
What data are published?
The data are used to calculate the composition of the workforce for each characteristic, such as the percentage of staff in each ethnic group in a board or NHS Scotland.
The data published are suppressed for statistical control reasons: when the number of people in the characteristic is less than five, the percentage value is not displayed.
Data quality
The data is generally of poor quality, as there is a high percent of unknown for many categories.
Sickness absence
Overview
| Data Source Name |
SWISS, SSTS |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
year ending 31 March |
Data source
The Scottish Standard Time System (SSTS) records absences for all staff directly employed by NHS Scotland except Scottish Ambulance Service. Absences of all types are included, for example, sickness absence, annual leave, special leave, and maternity and paternity leave. Any period of absence recorded in SSTS has a start date, end date, absence type, absence reason (if sickness absence type is used), and hours lost.
SSTS is connected to NHS Boards local payroll systems to ensure that staff are correctly paid. Data for sickness absence are then passed from Payroll to the Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS). Sickness absence data for Scottish Ambulance Service are recorded on a separate system which feeds directly to Payroll and then SWISS.
We receive an aggregated NHS Board level monthly summary from NHS National Services Scotland. This includes both the monthly sickness absence and the rolling year absence. This is sent to all NHS boards, and allows us to keep definitions in line with internal reporting.
Methods
Sickness absence includes absence types: normal sick leave, unpaid sick leave, industrial injury, accident involving a third party, and injury resulting from a crime of violence.
Every month NES receives the working hours lost, weekly contracted hours and sickness absence rate over a month and year for each NHS Board. There is a six week lag between the end of the sample period and extraction of the data from SWISS. This is to ensure any leave has been added to the systems. The sickness absence rate for the year ending 31 March is supplied mid-May and is reported in the Official Statistics publication.
The sickness absence rate is calculated by:
\[
\frac{Working Hours Lost}{Weekly Contracted Hours * 52.179} * 100
\]
where 52.179 is used to standardise the number of weeks in a year (including a leap year every four years).
Absences related to COVID-19 were initially included under Special Leave absence type so that it did not affect pay. These data were not passed to SWISS and are not currently available to NES. The Scottish Government reported absences due to COVID-19 on their website.
From 1 September 2022, COVID-19-related absences have been recorded as sickness absence (with covid-related illness reason). During the transition of how these data are recorded, users were allowed to update previously entered sickness absences reasons to covid-related illness. This was relevant for some boards who introduced the change in covid-related absence recording in May. The first instance of a sickness absence recorded with a covid-related illness reason is from August 2022.
What data are published?
The sickness absence rate for each NHS Board is published annually in June for the year ending 31 March.
Data quality
If someone leaves post, their sickness absence data is retained for three years after termination limiting historical sickness absence analysis.
Absence information is sourced from SSTS via SWISS. This is a dynamic operational system in which the data can change over time due to their live status and potential additional updates made by NHS Boards. Accuracy of coding is crucial to the quality and credibility of the data. The responsibility for data accuracy lies with the NHS Boards providing the data.
For Information Governance reasons, these data have not been through the same processing as the employment data derived from SWISS. Therefore, the staff included in these data might be slightly different compared with the employment data. For example, any Resident Doctors will be included in the Board as recorded in SWISS (Board of Employment).
Vacancies
Overview
| Data Source Name |
Vacancy Survey |
| Update Frequency |
Quarterly |
Data source
NES collects vacancies by survey for medical and dental consultants, nursing and midwifery, and allied health professions job families. Data are provided by NHS Boards for the number of vacant posts at a census (31 March, 30 June, 30 September, 31 December).
There is a survey specific to each staff group, and the survey items may vary slightly depending on the target staff group.
A separate survey is used to collect data on both employment and vacancies for the NHS Scotland pharmacy workforce.
The primary source for NHS Boards when completing the vacancy survey is Job Train, the national recruitment system for NHS Scotland.
Medical and dental consultants
Vacancy data are collected from each NHS Board for the number of vacant medical and dental consultant posts by the medical specialty and vacancy length (less than 6 months and 6 months or more). The list of medical specialties used to collect vacancy data are identical to those published for staff in post in the Variables Guide.
Data are collected by whole time equivalent and headcount.
Nursing and midwifery
Vacancy data are collected from each NHS Board for the number of vacant nursing and midwifery posts by the sub job family, agenda for change band, location of service delivery and vacancy length (less than 3 months, 3 - 6 months, and 6 months or more).
Data in the survey are collected for a reduced number of sub job families compared with the sub job families reported in the staff in post data. The following staff in post sub job families are collected and reported under a grouping of “other” in the vacancy survey: bank, blood transfusion service, community children’s nursing, sexual and reproductive health nursing, neonatal, NHS 24, specialist nursing, practice nursing, staff nursery, training and administration, and treatment room nursing. A full mapping is available in the Variables Guide.
Data are provided by whole time equivalent.
Allied health professionals
Vacancy data are collected from each NHS Board for the number of vacant posts for staff working in the allied health profession (AHP) staff group by the following variables: sub job family, agenda for change band group (e.g. support or qualified) and vacancy length (less than 3 months, 3 months or more and unknown).
The list of AHP sub job families used to collect vacancy data are identical to those published for staff in post (Variables Guide). However, vacant posts for multi-skilled and arts therapy are only collected for support staff (AfC Band 1-4). Similarly, vacant posts for paramedics are only collected for qualified staff (AfC Band 5-9).
Data are provided by whole time equivalent.
Methods
The definition of a vacancy in the NHS Scotland Workforce Statistics is
“a post which has been cleared for advert after being through the redeployment process (internal or external advert) and remains a vacancy until an individual starts in the post”
This definition is similar to the definition used in the ONS Vacancy Survey, “How many job vacancies a business has, for which they are actively seeking recruits from outside the organisation.”
We do not differentiate between seeking recruits from inside or outside the organisation (NHS) as the NHS is the only public sector healthcare delivering organisation in Scotland, restricting it to this would not be an accurate measure of the current demand for NHS staff.
These can be thought of ‘vacancies actively being recruited’.
Vacancy surveys are completed, signed off and returned to NES by each NHS Board. These data are the quality assured and loaded into the Data Warehouse.
The Establishment is: the number (or WTE) of staff employed plus the number (or WTE) of vacant posts.
The Vacancy rate is: The number of vacancies divided by the establishment and then multiplied by 100.
Definition limitations
A definition that is sometimes used, for example in the NHS England vacancy publication, is the difference between funded establishment, that is the total staff that the NHS budget allows for staff, and the number of staff employed. These are sometime described as ‘notional vacancies’.
Most of the vacancies that form the difference between current number of employed staff, will be in a process which will result in actively recruited. Some maybe being filled using a locum or temporary member of staff.
Some of these ‘notional vacancies’ may never transition in to actively recruited as budgets are amended.
What data are published?
Medical and dental consultants, nursing and midwifery and allied health professions are reported quarterly in the NHS Scotland Workforce official statistics publication.
The key information released in each publication is:
- Number of posts vacant at the census by NHS Board and length of vacancy.
- Vacancy rate at the census date by NHS Board.
Further breakdowns are available depending on the data collected, for example vacancies by specialty for medical and dental consultants.
Data quality
We continue to work with suppliers to improve the way we collect vacancy data, with the aim to extract this directly from Job Train, the NHS Scotland recruitment system. Currently NHS Boards extract data from Job Train, apply local knowledge of their data to complete NES vacancy surveys according to the definition and then submit.
Whilst investigating the use of Job Train we became aware of some minor differences in the way NHS Boards interpret the data. The largest variation between NHS Boards is in determining the start and end date of a vacancy. For this reason we do not recommend comparing vacancy data by length between NHS Boards.
We continue to review Job Train as a source of vacancy data with data suppliers and will provide an update to all stakeholders on our progress each quarter.
We review each survey received by assessing data completeness and accuracy compared with previous checks. We work closely with our data suppliers to understand any large changes in trends and whether any changes in their internal processes may affect the data a range of checks and quality assurance, checking for large changes and querying.
Occasionally, small errors are found by NHS Boards when running the following quarter’s data and revisions are required to the data. These are marked on the quarter where that update is made.
Nursing bank and agency
Overview
| Data Source Name |
Nursing agency survey, SWISS |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
year ending 31 March |
Data source
Nursing and midwifery agency hours and expenditure are collected from NHS Boards by a survey. Data on the the hours worked and expenditure on nursing and midwifery bank staff is extracted from SWISS.
Nursing bank and agency expenditure was first collected for the year ending 31 March 2009.
Method
Pay data for the NHS Scotland workforce are extracted monthly from SWISS and loaded into the Data Warehouse. The nursing and midwifery bank hours and expenditure filter this data for staff who are on a Bank contract and have a job family of Nursing and midwifery on 31 March. Total cost includes salary and employer pension and National Insurance (NI) contributions.
The average whole time equivalent is:
\[
\frac{Total Hours worked}{52 * WeeklyConditionedHours}.
\]
For years prior to 2024/25 the weekly conditioned hours were 37.5, 2024/25 and 2025/26 this is 37 and for 2026 onwards this will be 36.5.
The nursing and midwifery agency hours and expenditure are completed, signed off and returned to NES by each NHS Board. These data are the quality assured and loaded into the Data Warehouse.
What data are published?
The nursing bank and agency staff hours worked and expenditure are reported by NHS Board each year in June.
The following data are published:
- total hours worked
- total cost (£)
- Average whole time equivalent
Data quality
Completed agency surveys are signed off by the Director of Nursing, or equivalent officer within the NHS Board.
Bank data in SWISS is sourced from payroll systems and is of high quality.
In a small number of cases staff, who were a bank contract during the year, and moved to a non bank contract within the same NHS Board, will not be included in the bank data. Those who were on a part time contract and moved to a bank contract in the same NHS Board during the year will have all hours and expenditure included. This is due to the way Contract Type is recorded within SWISS.
Medical agency expenditure
Overview
| Data Source Name |
NHS Scotland’s Finance Platform |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
year ending 31 March |
Agency locum doctors and dentists are used by NHS Boards to support the workforce by providing additional temporary capacity. The annual expenditure on locums includes those who are hired through private agencies.
Data source
Data are sourced from NHS Scotland’s Finance Platform. They are extracted, quality assured and provided to NES by NHS National Services Scotland for the year ending 31 March 2025
Locums who are directly employed by NHS Boards, such as those working on Locum Appointment in Service or Locum Appointment in Training grades, are not included in these data but are included in the employment data.
Methods
Medical agency cost and expenditure data are sourced from NHS Scotland’s Finance Platform and supplied by NHS National Services Scotland (NSS). These data are circulated to Directors of Finance within each NHS Board who agree and sign-off the figures for the financial year. NSS then supply these data to NES, which complete another round of quality assurance before loading into the data warehouse.
What data are published?
Medical and dental locum spend is available for each year ending 31 March from 2013 and is updated annually. Data reported are expenditure on agency locums by NHS Board.
Data quality
NES carry out a second phase of quality assurance involving:
- checking for any errors (for example, missing values) in the return, and
- comparing figures with previous years.
When required, NES clarify any large changes in data with data providers.
These data are part of the two-week early release quality assurance process where the report is made available to NHS Boards to confirm as accurate. Communication with NHS Boards over this period allows us to confirm or update any of these data ahead of release to the public.
The data provided are aggregated and it is not possible to identify spend by other variables such as Specialty.
General practitioners
Overview
| Data Source Name |
NPCCD |
| Update Frequency |
Biannual |
| Census Dates |
31 March, 30 September |
Data source
The National Primary Care Clinicians Database (NPCCD) is a centralised database of primary care clinicians and general practice details, held at PHS but with data maintained by NHS Boards.
It currently contains details of all General Practitioners (GPs) and Optometrists/Ophthalmic Medical Practitioners validated to work in the Board area and locum for others. The data is used for onward feeding of other NHS systems, such as for verification and payment purposes as well as source data for National extracts as appropriate.
Following the introduction of New CHI, NPCCD is now the single source of truth for all GP practitioner and practice data in Scotland. Legislation states that all practitioners must be on the performer list (NPCCD) and validated prior to commencing work.
Work is ongoing to include Dental practitioners as well. More information on this can be found on the NSS NPCCD publication page.
Methods
Data on all GPs who have a non-locum contract with a GP Practice on the 31 March and 30 September each year are extracted from the NPCCD. This will include GPs who are on Maternity leave and other long term absences. It will also include any trainee, GP registrar, who has a contract to work in the practice on those dates. Typically a GP registrar will spend 6 months of their first year and all of their third year in primary care, with the remaining time on rotations within secondary care.
GPs who are on a locum contract, even if this contract is on a long term basis – covering for a maternity leave etc - are not included.
We include GPs with a contract:
- That started on or before a Start date that is less than or equal to the census date
- And ended on or before an End date that is greater than or equal to the census date OR is NULL
The contract must not have:
- a Practice type that is:
- Admin,
- 2Cdirect Homeless
- 2Cdirect Challenging behaviour
- 2Cdirect Nursing homes
- Hospice based practices
- a Practice SubTypes that is:
- Forensic Medical Services,
- Community Nursing,
- Challenging Behaviour,
- Out of Hours Practice
- A performer type that is:
- Foundation Doctors
- Core Trainees
- Admin & Clerical
- Health Board Locums / Generic
- Provider Only
- Other
- Generic locum records within NPCCD tend to have an inaccurate GMC number, we therefore exclude a GMC number:
- that is less than 1000
- or greater than 9990000
Data quality
Data is maintained by NHS Boards to manage their performer lists.
Contract details may be updated to indicate changes for a time after the contract has ended.
Currently, all data is revised, meaning historical changes can affect the time series, although these changes tend to be small.
The most recent data point in the time series is labelled as provisional as this is more susceptible to larger changes.
Dentists
Overview
| Data Source Name |
MIDAS, SWISS, TPM |
| Update Frequency |
Biannual |
| Census Dates |
31 March, 30 September |
Data source
Dentists working in the general dental services (GDS) are independent contractors and are usually the first point of contact for NHS dental treatment. People registered with a dentist can receive the full range of NHS treatment available under GDS. Data on this workforce is sourced from the Management Information and Dental Accounting System (MIDAS) held at Public Health Scotland.In the NHS Scotland workforce Official Statistics dashboard, these dentists can be found in the Dentist tab updated in June and September.
Dentists working in hospitals and Public Dental Services (PDS) provide dental care for people who have either been referred for further treatment or could not get care through the GDS (for example for patients who are residents of long-stay care). These dentists are directly employed by NHS Scotland and their data are sourced from SWISS. These numbers include Dentists in Training.
New or recent dental graduates undertake a one-year programme, Dental Vocational Training (DVT), which will allow them to work as an Associate or Principal in the GDS. Data on these Vocational Dental Practitioners (VDPs) are available in both SWISS and Turas People. In the NHS Scotland workforce Official Statistics dashboard, these dentists can be found in the Dentist tab updated in June and September.
From December 2022 (30 September 2022 census) they can also be found in the employment section of the dashboard under their employer Board, NHS Education for Scotland, ‘community dentistry’ specialty and ‘other’ grade. Before then VDPs were reported using an extract from Turas TPM, and were not in included in the employment data.
Methods
GDS dentists are those GDPs who have an active list number on MIDAS. A list number allows a Dentist to deliver NHS care within a board.
PDS dentists are those who:
- meet the definition of an active employee on the census date within SWISS AND,
- have a Dental specialty recorded OR,
- have an unknown specialty AND a GDC registration number,
- AND have “PDS” in their Pay Grade.
Hospital dentists are those who:
- meet the definition of an active employee on the census date within SWISS AND,
- have a Dental specialty recorded OR,
- have an unknown specialty AND a GDC registration number,
- AND do not have “PDS” in their Pay Grade.
Vocational dental practitioners are those who:
- meet the definition of an active employee on the census date within SWISS AND,
- have a Pay Grade of “Vocational Dental Practitioner”
What data are published?
The headcount of dentists working in the General Dental Service (GDS), Public Dental Service (PDS) and hospitals are published twice a year. An individual dentist is identified by their General Dental Council (GDC) Number. Dentists who work in multiple services, or NHS Boards will be counted once under each area and once in any totals, therefore subtotals may not add up to totals.
Inflow, outflow and turnover rate for the GDS and PDS workforce is also published.
Data quality
Similarly to General Practitioners, data is maintained by NHS Boards to manage their dental lists, and for dentists to receive payments for services. Due to this, data is likely to be of good quality.
Nursing students
Overview
| Data Source Name |
Turas Indexing |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
30 September |
Background
Universities providing nursing and midwifery education that leads to registration or recording with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) supply data to NES whenever a student starts, discontinues or completes their course. This includes pre-registration students and registered nurses and midwives undertaking post-registration qualifications.
NES supports the registration process for newly-qualified nurses and midwives in Scotland by transferring data from Turas Indexing to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Data source
Administrative staff in the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions directorate (NMAHP) within NES receive data on student completions and commencements throughout the first months of each academic year. Data is uploaded into Turas Indexing by universities using standard spreadsheet templates.
Aggregate data on student intakes are reported back to universities to ensure that NES’ records agree with the those of the data providers. Updates to data, for example, student name changes or notices of discontinuation, can be received at any point throughout the year.
Method
Data are extracted from Turas Indexing in November each year. All students who matriculate onto a nursing or midwifery course within Scotland that leads to a registration with the NMC are included.
What data are published?
NES publish student nurse and midwife intake, in-training, and progression statistics in December each year.
Intake:
- number of students commencing a course.
- Number in training: total number of students known to be actively in training on 31st October in each year of the reporting period.
Progression:
The percentage of each student cohort (on three-year degree courses) in each of the following mutually exclusive states:
- active (if they are in training),
- inactive (if they are not training and have not completed their course),
- or complete (if they have completed their training).
Data quality
Turas Indexing has data quality checks built into it, with checks for potential duplicated records and missing or incomplete data. Data quality is monitored throughout the year by NES.
There can be delays in universities notifying NES of students who have discontinued their training, meaning the number of active students may be slightly over reported.
Managed pharmacy workforce
Overview
| Data Source Name |
Managed Sector survey |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
30 September |
NES collects employment information on the NHS pharmacy workforce, sometimes referred to as the Managed Sector to differentiate it from community pharmacy.
The managed sector pharmacy workforce are directly employed by NHS Scotland and include staff who work within pharmacy services at a hospital, NHS Board, and the Pharmaceutical Special Service.
Data source
A survey is sent out to NHS Boards to collect aggregated information on employment, vacancies, locums, posts currently at risk, and disestablished posts.
Employment information for the managed pharmacy workforce are also available in SWISS. They are reported quarterly in the NHS Scotland Workforce official statistics publication under the Pharmacy sub job family (Other Therapeutic Services staff group). However, detail of the discipline (e.g pharmacist, pharmacy support worker etc) is only available in the annual survey.
Methods
Data are available annually on 30 September census from 2011.
Staff are included in this survey if they are employed by NHS Scotland on a permanent contract.
- A vacancy is defined as a post which has been cleared for advert after being through the redeployment process (internal or external advert) and remains a vacancy until an individual starts in the post.
- A locum is someone employed on a contractual basis through an agency, rather than having a permanent salaried position.
- Disestablished posts are posts are those that are no longer funded as part of the core establishment.
- At risk posts are those being considered removed from the core establishment.
Pharmacy leads at each NHS Board are asked to complete the excel-based survey for the workforce position at 31 September each year.
The managed sector survey collects information for the following disciplines:
- Pharmacists including those on the provisional register.
- Pharmacy technicians and pre-registration trainee pharmacy technicians (both year 1 and year 2).
- Pharmacy support workers.
- Administrative and clerical staff including roles in Business / Logistics / IT Managers, Office Managers, and Data Analysts.
- Non-AfC posts, e.g. Director’s of Pharmacy.
- Other posts not elsewhere classified.
Staff on secondments are reported under their NHS Board of employment, rather than board of placement.
Employment data are collected by division:
- NHS Acute Hospital,
- NHS Mental Health and Community Hospitals,
- NHS Board Central Staff, and
- NHS Board Primary Care Staff.
Territorial Boards record the level of staffing for each service within their Board, whereas staff at Special Health Boards are recorded under central staff service.
The above conditions apply to the data captured for vacant posts, locums, posts currently at risk and posts disestablished over the last year.
For vacancies, additional conditions are applied:
- if a post is filled by a locum/agency staff, it is still vacant;
- if a member of staff on leave, and it is filled by a permanently employed member of staff, then it is not vacant; and
- if a post is ‘empty’ at the census date, but it has been recruited into it then it is recorded as vacant until the new recruit starts.
What data are published?
- The number of staff employed by NHS board, division, discipline, and agenda for change band.
- The number of vacant posts and vacancy rate by NHS board, division, discipline, and agenda for change band.
- The number of locum and agency staff, posts currently at risk, and posts disestablished by NHS board, division, discipline, and agenda for change band.
Data quality
Several steps are in place to ensure that these data are reported accurately.
- Ahead of this survey being supplied to Boards, the Data Group work with the NES Pharmacy directorate to ensure the data being collected and the guidance for completion are accurate and relevant. The Pharmacy directorate are in touch with key stakeholders within this service in NHSScotland.
- An excel survey is provided to NHS Boards in the middle of September each year to complete for their pharmacy workforce at 31 September. The survey is completed by people working in the service and signed off by the director of pharmacy at each Board. Boards are asked to supply the data by end of October.
- Once these data have been returned to NES, each survey is checked for any completion errors or missing information and compared with previous figures for consistency. When required, NES clarify any potential issues with data providers. 4.These data are then processed to combine all extracts together and updated in reporting software, PowerBI. The report is then checked to ensure the values are shown accurately and any additional points of clarity are noted in notes pages or interactive tooltips.
- These data are part of the two-week early release quality assurance process where the outputs are made available to the directors of pharmacy to confirm as accurate. Communication with NHS Boards over this period allows us to confirm or update any of these data ahead of release to the public.
This collection allows NES to report the number of staff employed at a census date. This will be different from the number of staff working at any given time (for example, due to rostering or absences).
It is not possible to use the main administrative system of employment data (SWISS) since the occupational coding structure does not include the occupations in the survey. The use of administrative data would help reduce the burden on survey respondents by supplementing or replacing survey items and is something that NES is investigating.
It is not possible to track the progression of staff or calculate turnover using the survey because the data is aggregated.
National Treatment Centre workforce
Overview
| Data Source Name |
SWISS, National Waiting Times Centre extract |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
31 March and 30 September |
The National Treatment Centre (NTC) programme is an investment by the Scottish Government to support a national network of purpose-built healthcare facilities across Scotland for planned and diagnostic care. The new facilities will provide:
an increase in capacity to support patients to access treatment
increased flexibility for patients accessing treatment
support collaborative working across territorial NHS Boards
The workforce is critical to the delivery of NTC service. The 2021 NHS Recovery Plan stated a commitment to “recruit an additional 1,500 staff over the lifetime of this Plan, to support the accelerated delivery of the National Treatment Centre’s Programme”. It therefore supports the public good to report the workforce who will be placed in NTCs, and the number of people employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding.
These figures were first released as management information in June 2023 and to the public as Official Statistics in Development in December 2023. Shortly afterwards, the Scottish Government instructed all health boards to immediately stop development of all NHS projects not already in construction, including National Treatment Centres, due to budget constraints. We continue to report on the workforce twice a year.
Data source
Only staff who are directly employed by an NHS Board are included. The employment data are sourced from Scottish workforce information system (SWISS). These data are augmented with data for resident doctors from Turas People so that accurate board of placement and specialty can be reported.
The Scottish Government’s additional funding for the National Waiting Times Centre (NWTC) covers two phases of recruitment. Recruitment for phase 1 development of the Eye Centre was completed in early 2021, and recruitment for phase 2 of the NWTC expansion started in 2021 and is ongoing.
Due to the hybrid workforce model and financial coding structure, NWTC are unable to adopt the financial coding to identify staff employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding. NES and data providers at NWTC worked closely to develop a solution for reporting the additionally funded workforce. This process took the Code of Practice for Statistics into consideration, focussing specifically on methods, quality assurance processes, and the relevant limitations and risks. We engaged with key stakeholders throughout.
The agreed approach involves NWTC providing NES with an extract from their recruitment tracker monitoring the status of each post financed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding.
Method
National guidance was circulated to data providers explaining the use of financial coding to identify staff employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding in an NTC. This method requires health boards to introduce the finance codes and then send the finance codes to NES.
Staff working in an NTC are identified in the employment data using the finance codes provided from boards. In the case where a person’s employment is split between NTC and non-NTC roles, additional HR fields are used to identify the proportion of that person’s time that is allocated to the NTC.
The workforce reported includes people employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding in an NTC. Staff working in an NTC who are not employed using the additional funding, for example, existing services relocated to an NTC, are not included in these figures.
NTCs who have opened by 2025 are included: Golden Jubilee Phase 1 (Nov 2020), NHS Fife (March 2023), and NTC Highland (April 2023), NHS Forth Valley (2024), and Golden Jubilee Phase 2 (2024). .
The NWTC extract are linked to the SWISS employment data to identify the people who are still in post at the latest published census.
What data are published?
The workforce reported includes people employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding in an NTC. Staff working in an NTC who are not employed using the additional funding, for example, existing services relocated to an NTC, are not included in these figures. These data are updated in a NTC dashboard twice a year in June (31 March census) and December (30 September census).
A report estimating the number of people employed by the Scottish Government’s additional funding in the National Treatment Centres, and how many of these people are new entrants to NHS Scotland is also published twice a year in June (31 March census) and December (30 September census).
Data quality
In addition to the processes in place to assess the SWISS quality, we are in touch with data suppliers and NTC contacts within each health boards to check finance codes and the employment figures are accurate.
The main limitation of this approach is that the measurement for the additionally funded workforce at NWTC is not directly comparable to that used for other Boards due to the different data sources available. The data available from NWTC only includes those recruited first to each of the additional funded posts. More specifically, if a person recruited leaves an additional funded post, back fill for this post is not reported via the recruitment tracker. It is therefore not possible to track any person who is subsequently recruited, and the number of people employed will be under-reported. Assuming that NWTC replaces any individuals who leave, the difference between number recruited and number still employed is an estimate of the scale of under-reporting.
Calculations - Turnover
Overview
| Data Source Name |
SWISS |
| Update Frequency |
Annual |
| Census Dates |
year ending 31 March |
The sections below explain the inflow, outflow and turnover calculations applied to the NHS Scotland workforce, Dentists and General Practitioner workforce. These calculations require individual-level data so that we can decompose, or break down, the data to estimate annual flows, for example, the number of people joining (or inflow) or leaving (or outflow) the workforce. Whilst the underlying data for these three groups are different, the methodology is the same.
More detailed inflow and outflow measures have been released for the first time as Official Workforce Statistics from June 2025. These calculations disaggregate the flows, and the types of flow differ between the NHS Scotland workforce, Dentists and General Practitioners groups. This is in part due to the data available. For example, access to training data for Dentists and General Practitioners mean we can identify the inflow from trainees.
Inflow, outflow and turnover calculations
We calculate the inflow (or number of joiners), outflow (or number of leavers), and turnover for the year ending 31 March year using the employment data.
- Outflow is the number of staff who were employed at 31 March year n-1 and not employed at 31 March year n.
- Inflow is the number of staff who are employed at 31 March year n and were not employed at 31 March year n-1.
- Turnover is the outflow for the year ending 31 March year n, divided by staff employed at 31 March year n-1, and multiplied by 100.
For the NHS Scotland workforce, a staff member is identified in the employment data (SWISS) using a unique National Insurance Number.
For the dental workforce, General Dental Practitioners (GDPs) are identified by their General Dental Council (GDC) number in the MIDAS data source. GDPs includes a dentist who has completed Dental Vocational Training (DVT) and is working in the General Dental Service (GDS) and the Public Dental Service (PDS). General Practitioners (GP) are identified using their General Medical Council (GMC) number in the NPCCD data source. This will include any trained GP working in primary care at the census point (even if they are paid by a NHS Board).
We exclude Vocational Dental Practitioners, and GP trainees (Performer Registrars) from these calculations to avoid distortion caused by rotation of training placements.
The NHS Scotland workforce Official Statistics publication dashboard presents the inflow, outflow and turnover calculations for the NHS Scotland workforce (Turnover tab), Dentists (Dentists tab) and General Practitioners (General Practitioners tab). For NHS Scotland workforce, headcount or whole time equivalent estimates are available by occupation (Job Family, Sub Job Family and Band or Specialty and Grade), and contract type. For GDPs, estimates are available in headcount only by NHS Board and sex. Headcount estimates by NHS Board are available for GPs.
Detailed Turnover
NHS Scotland
One way to assess the mobility of the NHS Scotland workforce is to calculate the inflows and outflows within and out with NHS Scotland. To do this we disaggregate the inflow and outflows into three, mutually exclusive, sub-flows. These calculations are in headcount only.
Inflows for the year ending 31 March year n are defined as:
- Joined NHS Scotland: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Scotland workforce at 31 March year n and were not employed in NHS Scotland workforce at 31 March year n-1.
- Joining from another Board: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Board b at 31 March year n, and were not employed in NHS Board b, but were employed elsewhere in NHS Scotland, at 31 March year n-1. This works by using the NHS Board filter to select one or more boards (or regions). The charts will then show the number of people who joined the selected NHS Board(s) in each year ending 31 March from the NHS Boards that are not selected.
- Joining job from another within Board: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Board, b, and occupation, o, at 31 March year n, and were employed in NHS Board, b, but not in occupation, o, at 31 March year n-1. An occupation is selected using the Job family, Band/Grade group and / or Contract Type filters. If looking at Scotland level, the chart will show the number of people who have joined this occupation group from other occupations within NHS Scotland in each year ending 31 March. If the user is looking at a Board level, the chart will show the number of people who have joined this occupation group from other occupations in the selected NHS Board in each year ending 31 March.
Similarly, the outflows for the year ending 31 March year n are defined as:
- Left NHS Scotland: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Scotland workforce at 31 March year n-1 and were not employed in NHS Scotland workforce at 31 March year n.
- Leaving to another Board: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Board b at 31 March year n-1, and were not employed in NHS Board b, but were employed elsewhere in NHS Scotland, at 31 March year n. This works by using the NHS Board filter to select one or more boards (or regions). The charts will then show the number of people who have left the selected NHS Board(s) in each year ending 31 March.
- Leaving job for another within Board: The number of staff who are employed in NHS Board, b, and occupation, o, at 31 March year n-1, and were employed in NHS Board b, but not in occupation, o, at 31 March year n. An occupation is selected using the Job family, Band/Grade group and / or Contract Type filters. If looking at Scotland level, the chart will show the number of people who have left this occupation group for other occupations within NHS Scotland in each year ending 31 March. If the user is looking at a Board level, the chart will show the number of people who have left this occupation group for other occupations in the selected NHS Board in each year ending 31 March.
The counts for this are calculated contextually, e.g. joiners and leavers will update depending on the exact group you have filtered for and do not total up. If you are looking at a Scotland level it will not total all the moves that have occurred within Scotland, only the moves that have gone in and out of Scotland as a whole.
Example 1 An individual employed in NHS Tayside on 31st March 2024 and is then employed in NHS Grampian on 31st March 2024.
- If the user is looking at all Boards (e.g no Board filter applied), then this individual would not appear as a joiner or a leaver.
- If the user has filtered to the North region (selected Highland, Grampian, Orkney, Tayside, Western Isles, and Shetland in the Board filter), then this individual would not appear as a joiner or a leaver.
- If the user has filtered to NHS Tayside in the Board filter, then the individual would be classed as Leaving to another Board. Similarly, if the user has filtered to NHS Grampian, then the individual would be classed as Joining from another Board.
Example 2 An individual is employed in NHS Lanarkshire under the Administrative services job family at 31st March 2024 and is then employed in NHS Lanarkshire under the Nursing & Midwifery job family at 31st March 2025.
- If the user is looking at all Boards (e.g no Board filter applied) and all jobs (e.g no Job family, Band/Grade group or Contract Type filters applied), then this individual would not appear as a joiner or a leaver.
- If the user has filtered to NHS Lanarkshire in the Board filter, then this individual would not appear as a joiner of a leaver.
- If the user has selected the Administrative services in the Job Family filter, (either at a Scotland level or at NHS Lanarkshire) they would appear as a leaver to other job. Similarly, if the user has selected Nursing & midwifery in the Job Family filter, they would appear as a joiner from another job.
Dental and General Practitioners
We provide different sub-flows for GDPs and GPs. The is mostly since we are dealing with specific workforce groups for which we have access to training and education data that we can link with employment.
GDPs includes a dentist who has their DVT and is working in the GDS or PDS.
GPs include any trained GP working in primary care at the census point (even if they are paid by a NHS Board).
The inflow into the GDP or GP workforce in the year ending 31 March year n can be split into three sub-flows:
- Inflow from trainee: The number of GDPs or GPs who are first employed in the GDP or GP workforce at 31 March year n and were previously observed as a VDP or GP trainee.
- Inflow from returners: measures the number of GDPs or GPs who have left the workforce and returned. More specifically, for dentists, it is the number of GDPs who were not employed in the GDP workforce at the previous time, 31 March year n-1, but are employed at 31 March year n, and have previous employment as a GDP, n < n-1. Similarly, for GPs it is the number of GPs who were not employed in as a GP at the previous time, 31 March year n-1, but are employed at 31 March year n, and have previous GP employment, n < n-1
- Inflow from other sources: The number of GDPs or GPs who were first employed in the GDP or GP workforce at 31 March year n and had previously never been observed in the GDP or GP workforce (including as a VDP or GP trainee).
Both the GDP and GP data are from 31st of March 2009. Therefore, if a GDP was a VDP, or a GP a trainee, before that time, and joined the workforce, or they were a GDP or GP and returned to the workforce, they would be included in the inflow from other sources sub-flow.
The outflow from the GDP or GP workforce in the year ending 31 March year n can be split into three sub-flows:
- Left Scotland: The number of GDP or GPs who were employed in the GDP or GP workforce at 31 March year n-1 but are not employed in the GDP or GP workforce in Scotland at 31 March year n,
- Left Board: The number of GDP or GPs who are employed in the GDP or GP workforce in NHS Board, b, at 31 March year n-1, and were not employed in the same workforce in NHS Board b, but were employed in Scotland, at 31 March year n. This works by using the NHS Board filter to select one or more boards (or regions). The charts will then show the number of people who have left the selected NHS Board(s) in each year ending 31 March.
- Left Other: The number of GDPs who are employed in the GDS or PDS in NHS Board, b, at 31 March year n-1, and were employed in NHS Board b, but as a Hospital dentist at 31 March year n. This is not relevant for GPs.
Data quality
In a small number of cases the inflow and outflow will be caused by administrative updates to correct an error in a National Insurance number, GDC Number or GMC Number.
For VDPs, there are some missing GDC numbers within the Vocational Dental practitioner data extracted from TPM. If these VDPs transition into the GDS or PDS workforce they will be included in the “Other inflow”. The proportion of missing GDC number in the VDPs each year is small.
NHS workforce glossary
The NHS Workforce is made up of several staff groups employed in 22 organisations (or NHS Boards).
Staff groups
The NHS Workforce can be split into 3 broad groups based on their pay scale.
- Agenda for Change staff
- Medical and Dental
- Senior Managers
Agenda for Change (AfC)
The national NHS pay system which introduced new pay bands and harmonised terms and conditions for NHS workforce. It came into effect, across the UK, on 1st December 2004.
The majority of staff who work in the NHS are in this group. It covers Nurses, Midwives, AHPs such as Physiotherapists, Administrative staff, Support services etc.
Bands
AfC staff are grouped into pay bands, which go from Band 2 - Band 9. Band 8 is split into 4 bands, 8A - 8D.
For reporting purposes, we group AfC bands into two groups:
- Support which is Band 2 to Band 4,
- Qualified which is Band 5 to Band 9.
This is primarily based on Nursing, midwifery and AHP, where Band 5 + are restricted to staff with a registration in the profession.
Job family
A high-level occupational grouping of the workforce employed by NHS Scotland. This is used interchangeably with ‘staff group’. The Variables Guide describes how data is mapped for job families and staff groups used in NHS Scotland Workforce publications.
Sub job family
A sub-grouping for job family / staff group of the NHS Scotland workforce. The Variables Guide describes how data is mapped for sub job families used in NHS Scotland Workforce publications.
Medical and dental
The medical and dental staff group are all the doctors and dentists working across NHS Scotland.
Grades
The medical and dental workforce is reported by grade, the position a person is working at in the medical profession.
These grades are defined in the Variables Guide.
Resident doctors
Doctors who have completed a medical degree and are on a postgraduate training programme. There are several stages to doctors postgraduate training.
Foundation year 1 and 2
Doctors who have completed a medical degree and are on an integrated two-year Foundation Programme (FY). Completion of FY1 allows doctors to gain full registration with the GMC and completion of FY2 allows them to apply for further study and training in a specialised area of medicine.
Core and specialty trainees
Doctors who have completed the Foundation Programme but are still receiving training (normally in a specialty). They are either on a Core Training Programme or a Specialty Training Programme.
When a resident doctor starts a Specialty training programme they receive a National Training Number (NTN). After completion of a training programme, doctors receive a Certificate of Completion of Training.
Consultants
Senior doctors who have had a minimum of six years training in their specialty. They are listed on the GMC’s specialist register.
Specialty and Associate Specialist doctors
Doctors who have gained some experience within their specialty such as associate specialist, clinical medical officer and hospital practitioner.
Dental officer and senior dental officer
Dentists paid by their employing NHS board. These are dentists working in hospitals and community health services provide dental care for people who have either been referred for further treatment or could not get care through the GDS (for example for patients who are residents of long-stay care).
Other Grades
Work is ongoing to better report on some grades that are currently reported as Other. Some grades that are currently grouped into this are described below.
Clinical fellows and Locally Employed Doctors (LEDs)
Specialty training posts which allow the post holder to spend 25% of their time on academic training as well as 75% in clinical training, and prepare for an application for a training fellowship or for a higher degree.
GPs
Most GPs working in Scotland work as contractors delivering services. In some cases, a GP practice is run directly by the NHS Board, known as a 2C practice, and the GPs working in these practices will be recorded in our data.
Out of Hours (OOH) GPs
GPs who work in Out of Hours are employed by NHS Boards. They are often recorded in our data as on a low WTE as they work primarily in in-hours services as contracted GPs. NES publishes details on the OOH workforce in the GP OOH Survey.
Specialties
An area of training with curricula and assessments approved by the General Medical Council (GMC). The medical workforce is reported by specialty in the NHS Scotland Workforce publication and specialties are defined in the Variables Guide (downloadable spreadsheet).
Senior managers
These staff are on the Executive and Senior Manager Pay framework. Some of their pay is impacted by performance. Within our data these are reported in the Management grades (non AfC) sub job family under the Administrative services job family.
NHS Scotland structure
NHS Scotland consists of:
- 14 territorial NHS Boards which are responsible for the protection and the improvement of their population’s health and for the delivery of frontline healthcare services, and
- 7 Special NHS Boards and 1 public health body who support the regional NHS Boards by providing a range of important specialist and national services.
The 14 territorial boards are reported under regions:
- East Region, which consists of NHS Borders, NHS Lothian and NHS Fife
- West Region, which consists of NHS Forth Valley, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Dumfries & Galloway and NHS Lanarkshire
- North Region, which consists of NHS Highland, NHS Grampian, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland, NHS Western Isles and NHS Tayside
Primary care contractor workforce
General medical practice
General Medical Services (GMS)
General Medical Services (GMS) is the term used to describe the range of healthcare that is provided by General Practitioners (GPs or family doctors). The NHS specifies what GPs, as independent contractors, are expected to do and provides funding for this work through arrangements known as the General Medical Services Contract. Today, the GMS contract is a UK-wide arrangement with minor differences negotiated by each of the four UK health departments.
General Practitioner designations
In line with legislation that came into effect on 1 April 2004, GPs are collectively termed ‘Performers’. These can be broken down into further sub-categories or designations as follows:
- Performer: a GP who has entered into a contract to provide services to patients and is effectively self-employed; usually a practice partner.
- Performer salaried: A GP who is employed by the practice or NHS Board on a salaried basis.
- Performer retainee: A GP, who is part of the GP Retainer Scheme in Scotland a time limited scheme to allow qualified GPs on the Performer’s list who have caring responsibilities (usually for young children) which prevents them from committing to a more substantive post in GP.
- Performer Registrar/Specialist Trainee: A medical practitioner in a GP training program.
General Dental Practice
General Dental Service (GDS)
NHS general dental services are provided by general dental practitioners, under a national contract between themselves and the NHS Boards. General dental practitioners are independent contractors. They are free to choose whether to join a NHS Board’s dental list and whether to provide NHS dental treatment to each individual patient.
Public Dental Service (PDS)
The main role of the PDS is to provide dental services for people who cannot access care from an independent dentist.
This includes patients:
- with special care needs, such as mental health conditions or physical disabilities
- resident in long-stay care
- referred for specific treatment
The PDS was formed on 1 January 2014 when the Salaried General Dental Service merged with the Community Dental Service.