Number of wider practice staff employed in general practices (headcount and full-time equivalent), by staff category and area
Next update expected:June 2026
Updates
- 30th April 2026
This update includes the publication of September 2025 data
Welsh Government was notified of cluster changes after the changes had already taken place in practice. These changes relate to the following cluster mergers:
• Rhondda North and Rhondda South merging as Rhondda; • Merthyr Tydfil North and Merthyr Tydfil South merging as Merthyr Tydfil; • Taf Ely North and Taf Ely South merging as Taf Ely
The exact dates on which these changes took effect are not known; however, they are confirmed to have been in place since at least 1 April 2023. Therefore, these mergers are reflected in the data from June 2023 onwards.
- 16th October 2025
- Dataset first published.
Main information
- Designation
- Official statistics
- Data provider 1
- NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership
- Data source 1
- Primary Care Workforce Intelligence System
- Data provider 2
- NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership
- Data source 2
- Wales National Workforce Reporting System (WNWRS)
- Time period covered
- March 2020 to September 2025
Overview
- Summary of dataset and variables
This shows the number of (headcount) and full-time equivalent (FTE) wider practice staff employed in general practices by staff category and local health board, at every quarterly snapshot date.
Wider practice staff: captures all nurses, direct patient care and admin staff. These three groups cover all ‘non GP’ staff in primary care.
- Data collection or calculation
Figures are unique staff counts. So if one person is employed multiple times in one local health board (LHB) or staff category, they are only counted once (but if the person is also employed in another LHB or staff category, then they would be counted once in each LHB or staff category). Therefore figures cannot be summed by LHB or staff category.
Figures for FTE count towards the staff group and health board each contract is with. Therefore the FTE figures for each health board will sum to the Wales figure and the sum of the FTE of nurses, direct patient care and admin staff will sum to the FTE for 'wider practice staff', subject to small rounding differences.
From 30 September 2025, general practice workforce data are sourced from the Primary Care Workforce Intelligence System (PCWIS), which supersedes the Wales National Workforce Reporting System (WNWRS) that had been the data source since 2020.
In broad terms, the system works by practice managers inputting details of their staff onto the system, confirming the details every quarter. Data is then extracted on the last day of each quarter (March, June, September, December). NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) perform validations to improve data quality before anonymised data are shared with Welsh Government statisticians to validate further and produce these official statistics.
Changes to clusters: Welsh Government was notified of cluster changes after the changes had already taken place in practice. These changes relate to the following cluster mergers: • Rhondda North and Rhondda South merging as Rhondda • Merthyr Tydfil North and Merthyr Tydfil South merging as Merthyr Tydfil • Taf Ely North and Taf Ely South merging as Taf Ely The exact dates on which these changes took effect are not known; however, they are confirmed to have been in place since at least 1 April 2023. Therefore, these mergers are reflected in the data from June 2023 onwards.
The Dwyfor & North Meirionnydd cluster changed as of 1 April 2021 as some practices moved in from the South Meirionnydd cluster.
The South Meirionnydd cluster changed as of 1 April 2021 as some practices moved to the Dwyfor & North Meirionnydd cluster.
- Statistical quality
Full-time equivalent (FTE) data is available from 31-Dec-2021 onwards.
March 2020 data: 2 out of the 404 active practices did not supply data or did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the WNWRS. These practices did supply initial data through an Excel spreadsheet in late 2019, which was used to pre-populate the WNWRS before the system went live for practices. Therefore the data provided in the initial spreadsheet has been used for these two practices. Note that both practices reported that there were no GP practitioners at the practice, but there were wider practice staff reported.
June 2020 data: 46 practices out of the 402 active practices with staff did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2020 (they last confirmed between January and March 2020). An additional 50 practices did not modify data in the quarter up to June 2020 (although they did view data in that quarter). 3 practices updated their data shortly after the snapshot date (on 2 July).
September 2020 data: 6 practices out of the 399 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2020 (they last confirmed between April and June 2020).
December 2020 data: 36 practices out of the 396 active practices with staff did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to December 2020.
March 2021 data: 9 practices out of the 396 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to March 2021.
June 2021 data: All active practices confirmed their data as being up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2021.
September 2021 data: 11 practices out of the 391 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2021.
December 2021 data: 30 practices out of the 390 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to December 2021.
March 2022 data: 6 practices out of the 388 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to March 2022.
June 2022 data: 11 practices out of the 386 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2022.
September 2022 data: 16 practices out of the 386 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2022.
December 2022 data: 10 practices out of the 383 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to December 2022.
March 2023 data: 2 practices out of the 383 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to March 2023.
June 2023 data: 20 practices out of the 379 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2023.
September 2023 data: 0 practices out of the 378 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2023.
December 2023 data: 0 practices out of the 374 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to December 2023.
March 2024 data: 0 practices out of the 374 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to March 2024.
June 2024 data: 0 practices out of the 372 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2024.
September 2024 data: 0 practices out of the 371 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2024.
December 2024 data: 0 practices out of the 370 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to December 2024.
March 2025 data: 0 practices out of the 370 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to March 2025.
June 2025 data: 0 practices out of the 370 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to June 2025.
September 2025 data: 2 practices out of the 368 active practices did not confirm their data was up-to-date in the quarter up to September 2025.
- Related reports
Published by
- Organisation
- Welsh Government
- Contact email
- stats.healthinfo@gov.wales