2013 National Primary Care Workforce Survey

The results of a survey of Scotland’s GP practice workforce have been published.

The healthcare workforce is central to achieving our Quality Ambitions of safe, effective and person-centred care and the 2020 Vision for healthcare.  The GP practice workforce is a core element of the wider workforce supporting sustainable service provision through new and existing models of care.

Data on doctors, nurses and healthcare support staff in post provided by GP practices as part of the 2013 National Primary Care Workforce Survey will help assist those with responsibilities for ensuring the provision of safe, high quality and sustainable patient care.  It provides data on the primary care workforce serving each NHS Board area and can be found by visiting the Information Services Division (ISD) webpages of NHS National Services Scotland.

For the first time, the survey includes some data on the GP out of hours’ workforce.  An Experimental Report of those GP out of hours results not included as Official Statistics is available on the ISD website (https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2013-11-19/2013-11-19-PCWS-Report.pdf).

The survey results will inform future Ministerial decisions on a range of key health and social care policies, including the allocation of training places to support community based care; General Medical Services contract negotiations; and service in remote and rural areas.

The results also provide valuable data which can be used by those involved in developing primary care workforce plans.