NHSScotland Workforce Information

Allied health professions

This section provides information on the allied health professions workforce in NHSScotland. Figures are sourced from the Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS) and describe the numbers of staff assimilated to the Agenda for Change allied health professions job family and those staff not yet assimilated but where an allied health profession discipline has been identified from their existing payscale.

This is the first time that allied health professions information has been presented using the new Agenda for Change job families, sub job families and bands. Staff in post figures are presented by individual discipline, with a split for staff assimilated and those not yet assimilated onto Agenda for Change . Figures are also presented by band, band grouping, age group, gender, contract type and NHS Region and Board.

Throughout information is presented as headcount or Whole Time Equivalent (WTE). WTE adjusts headcount staff figures to take account of part-time staff.

The chart below shows that the largest profession (WTE) is physiotherapy at 28.2%. The second largest profession is occupational therapy (24.1%) followed by radiography (20.5%). Allied health professions staff account for 6.7% of the total NHSScotland workforce.

Allied health professions - pie chart3

Staff in post

Latest available data 30th September 2007 - Last updated 29th January 2008

The number of allied health professions staff in post at 30th September 2007 is 8,951.5 (WTE), an increase of 109.3 (1.2%) from 30th September 2006.The corresponding headcount also shows an increase of 1.2% from 10,845 at 30th September 2006 to 10,981 at 30th September 2007. Please note that to allow a comparable trend with 2007 information, adjustments have been made. For the period 1997 to 2006 play staff/specialists and rehabilitation/clinical support assistants have been excluded.