Percentage of practice population seen in a year, by staff discipline

The chart below shows the percentage of patients registered with a practice that have had at least one face-to-face contact with a member of the practice team during the year, for the financial years 2003/04 to 2006/07. Percentages are shown for each individual staff discipline, for GP and practice nurse combined, and for any of the four disciplines combined (GP, practice nurse, district nurse, health visitor). Although the same patient may be counted under more than one discipline, the patient is counted only once in the 'All disciplines' and the 'GP and practice nurse' categories. It is clear that, while GPs see the largest proportion of patients within the practice, a small minority of patients are seen solely by other members of the practice team.

The chart illustrates that the percentage of people seen each year by the GP is very stable at 75% for the first three years, with a slight rise in 2006/07 to 76%. When taking all four disciplines into account, 83% of people registered had at least one contact with the practice in each of the three years between 2003/04 and 2005/06. For GP and practice nurse the percentage is marginally lower at 81% (with a slight rise in 2006/07 to 82%). This suggests that only 2% of the people registered with a practice are seen exclusively by a community nurse (district nurse or health visitor) in a year.

The figures underlying this chart are provided here in excel format  (28KB).

Estimated percentage of the practice population seen by each staff discipline (separately)*,
by either GP or practice nurse, or by any of the four disciplines 
financial years 2003/04 to 2006/07 ^1,2  

* District nurse and health visitor data are no longer available from 2006/07 onwards
¹ Based on 45, 44, 44 and 45 PTI practices that submitted complete PTI data for the years ending 31st March 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively. Figures are standardised by age, gender and deprivation.
² Population source: Community Health Index (CHI) record, as at 30th September 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Note: Following a substantial review of PTI data and subsequent revisions to the methodology for all PTI analyses, direct comparisons with figures produced prior to 27th March 2007 are not valid.  See the Note of Revisions for further information.

Source: Practice Team Information (PTI), ISD Scotland (last updated 25 March 2008)