Medical and Dental
This section provides information on the medical and dental workforce in NHSScotland. During 2008, information from the medical and dental (MEDMAN) system which includes information on all medical and dental staff working in hospitals, the community and public sector was migrated to the Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS). This alignment provided the opportunity to capture all NHSScotland staff in post information in the one system, which has resulted in more robust information being captured and reported.
The figures reported from 2008 onwards are sourced from SWISS and from the Practitioner Contractor Database (PCD) and Management Information and Dental Accounting System (MIDAS). Figures reported prior to 2008 are sourced from MEDMAN, PCD and MIDAS.
Information is presented by staff group, country of qualification, specialty, grade, age group, gender, contract type, NHS Board and region.
The tables present figures in both Headcount numbers and Whole Time Equivalents (WTE). WTEs adjust headcount staff figures to take account of part-time staff.
An employee may hold more than one appointment in NHSScotland. Their appointments may be in more than one NHS organisation, in more than one region, in more than one specialty, or in more than one grade. This issue must be considered when using tables showing Headcount figures as the employee is counted under each organisation / region / specialty / grade they work in but only once in the total. Tables showing WTE figures are not affected.
The headcount and WTE of all medical and dental staff, HCHS medical and dental staff and medical and dental support staff, along with the headcount of General medical Practitioners (GPs) and General Dental Services (GDS) dentists, is presented here:
Please see NHS Scotland Workforce Publication Report 
[1.6mb] for full details.
Other information available includes;
- Dentists
- Hospital, Community and Public Health Services (HCHS) Medical and Dental
- Doctors in training
Hospital, Community and Public Health Services (HCHS) Medical and Dental
Latest data available 31st December 2011 - last updated 28th February 2012.
The HCHS medical and dental workforce data presented in these tables includes all permanent paid and honorary contracts held by medical and dental staff in post in NHSScotland. Staff with locum appointments are excluded. The data are sourced from the annual medical and dental workforce census, and the annual census of consultant vacancies provided by all NHS Organisations. Doctors may hold more than one appointment. Appointments may be in more than one NHS organisation, in more than one region, in more than one specialty, or in more than one grade. In this case, they are counted once under each organisation / specialty / grade but only once in the total. Grade groupings The Specialist Registrar, Registrar and Senior Registrar grades have been grouped together as the 'Registrar Group'. The Specialist Registrar grade was introduced from 1996, replacing the Registrar and Senior Registrar grades. Following the introduction of Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), a UK wide reform of post graduate medical training, House Officers have been renamed to Foundation Year 1 and some Senior House Officers have been renamed to Foundation Year 2 depending on the stage of their training. 'Doctors in training' includes doctors within the Registrar Group, Senior House Officers/Foundation Year 2 and Foundation Year 1 doctors. Specialties Staff working in the specialty Pain Management have been included under Anaesthetics. Staff working in the specialty Blood Transfusion have been included under Haematology. In 2006, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery was reclassified as a hospital medical surgical speciality, rather than a hospital dental speciality. Data presented in these tables, including historical data from 2001 to 2006, reflect this reclassification. Accident & Emergency specialty has been renamed to Emergency Medicine. From 30th September 2004 a second specialty was recorded on the medical and dental workforce system. Consultants and Specialist Registrars working in general medicine are now classified under their second specialty. Consultants Consultant figures include Directors of Public Health. Country of qualification The European Economic Area (EEA) includes the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Maximum part-time contracts Maximum part time contracts for consultants and associate specialists are appropriate where income from private practice exceeds 10 per cent of the gross NHS salary. Such staff are counted as whole time (1.0 in any WTE counts) to reflect their essentially whole time commitment. This is not applicable for consultants on the new consultant contract.
Please see NHS Scotland Workforce Publication Report [1.6mb] for full details
Doctors in training
This section provides information and progress made towards Doctors in training compliance with the 'new deal'. For Junior Doctors to comply with the new deal working hours should not have exceeded 58 hours from August 2004 to January 2007, and 56 hours from August 2007.
Latest data available 31st July 2010 The figure below summaries compliance rates across NHS Boards with the New Deal. For the latest rota period (covering February 2010 - July 2010) the compliance rate for Scotland stands at 98.3% . There are several reasons for non compliance:
- exceeding the maximum average of 48 contracted hours per week.
- failing to take the minimum amount of natural breaks.
- exceeding the maximum contracted hours in an individual shift.
- failing to meet at least 75% of rest periods.
In general, non compliance is due to the latter 3 reasons i.e. the majority of rotas do not exceed the maximum average contracted hours. The chart above shows that the percentage of doctors in training compliant with the guidelines for working hours within NHSScotland has been increasing over the past seven years. The number (headcount) of compliant doctors in training has increased by 19.1% from 4,149 for the rota period February 2004 - July 2004 to 4,941 for the rota period February 2010 - July 2010. In the same period the total number of doctors in training increased by 2.8% from 4,891 to 5,029
- Doctors in training
[1.8mb]
In conjunction with stakeholders it has been agreed that ISD will no longer collect and publish information relating to the NHS Workforce - Doctors in training compliance with the New Deal. Information is however available on request.
