Page last updated: 30-MAR-2010

General Practice - Practice Team Information (PTI)

Note of Revisions March 2010

There are some relatively minor changes that have been made in the methodology to calculate PTI estimates published from 30 March 2010 onwards, compared to those published previously:

  • PTI figures published relate to face-to-face contacts (in the surgery or the patient’s home) only and do not include (for example) telephone contacts or administrative entries. For the figures published on 30 March 2010 an updated set of rules was applied to determine what records described a face-to-face contact and what records should be considered as administration. Records that were indicated to be of face-to-face contacts but lacked an informative Read code (for a sign, symptom, condition or activity) are now included, resulting in a small increase (of on average less than 3%) of the number of contacts being considered as face-to-face. Any estimates for specific conditions are unaffected by this change. Also, data from InPS-Vision systems was filtered more stringently to exclude some codes relating to repeat prescriptions previously thought to be part of face-to-face contacts, resulting in a small drop in number of contacts for Vision practices only. The new criteria have been applied to all new and historically collected information. The net results was that the estimated overall numbers of contacts for the years 2003/04 to 2007/08 have risen slightly compared to figures published last year.
  • Last year (March 2009) was the first year in which data from practices using primary care IT systems other than GPASS were included. This year the number of InPS-Vision practices has risen slightly from 9 in 2007/08 to 11 contributing to the 2008/09 figures. This year also a number of practices using EMIS have been included that had not been included previously; three EMIS practices contributed to the 2008/09 figures and one to the 2007/08 figures. Inclusion of practices using different clinical systems is essential to maintain the representativeness of the PTI sample.


All estimates shown on ISD's PTI web pages are calculated using the new methods including historic information. To prevent confusion, estimates published in March 2009 for 2003/04-2007/08 no longer appear on this website and on 30 March 2010 were replaced by the revised data. However, the PTI team can provide copies of the old data on request and discuss any changes in further detail. Also, if you have been provided with PTI analysis prior to 30 March 2010 and you wish to have these estimates updated using our new methods, please contact the PTI team .

In previous years more major changes have been made to methodology. For more information on changes made in March 2009, please see Note of Revisions March 2009. Similarly, changes made the year before can be found in the Note of Revisions March 2008 and for 2007 in Note of Revisions March 2007.


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