Nuffield Trust NHS staff tracker: What are the trends in staff numbers working in general practice?

Summary

Most of the contact that people have with the NHS is with general practice: there are an estimated 300 million appointments each year. These services provide the first step in diagnosing and treating most patients’ health conditions.

Due to changes in the data, trends in general practice staff are limited to 2015 at the earliest. The data do not include staff working in prisons, army bases, educational establishments, specialist care centres including drug rehabilitation centres and walk-in centres. From July 2019, primary care networks (PCNs) will offer services to patients and employ new specialist staff such as clinical pharmacists, social prescribing link workers, physiotherapists, physician associates and paramedics. NHS Digital has started to publish information on the PCN workforce, but the data does not presently cover all PCNs. Based on the PCN data that is available, the Nuffield Trust has estimated the number of certain primary care staff groups employed by PCNs across England,.