As of December 2024, there were 6,277 general practices in operation in England, the lowest number of practices in the provided time interval. With decreasing number of GP practices, the number of patients per practice in England is also increasing, furthering the strain and pressure in general practice. Note: Instead of the total number of GP surgeries in the UK, the NHS now publishes data for each country separately. See the number of GP practice in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

This statistic displays the annual number of NHS GP practices in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2017. In 2017 there were 9,085 GP practices in operation in the United Kingdom, the lowest number of practices in the provided time interval. Note: the NHS now publishes data for each country separately. See the number of GP practice in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Data for this publication are extracted each month as a snapshot in time from the Primary Care Registration database within the NHAIS (National Health Application and Infrastructure Services) system. This release is an accurate snapshot as at 1 April 2024. This publication also includes monthly data outputs from the Personal Demographic Service, which will become the data source for this publication from May 2024. More information about the data source change can be found in the Data Quality Statement. GP Practice; Primary Care Network (PCN); Sub Integrated Care Board Locations (SICBL); Integrated Care Board (ICB) and NHS England Commissioning Region level data are released in single year of age (SYOA) and 5-year age bands, both of which finish at 95+, split by gender. In addition, organisational mapping data is available to derive PCN; SICBL; ICB and Commissioning Region associated with a GP practice and is updated each month to give relevant organisational mapping. Quarterly publications in January, April, July and October will include Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) populations.

As of December 2024, the average number of patients per GP practice in England amounted to over ten thousand. This figure has been increasing since December 2016, when there were 7.7 thousand patients per GP practice in England. GP practices have increasing pressure due to decreasing GP practice numbers and rising demand.

The General Practice Workforce series of Official Statistics presents a snapshot of the primary care general practice workforce. A snapshot statistic relates to the situation at a specific date, which for these workforce statistics is now the last calendar day each month. This monthly snapshot reflects the general practice workforce at 30 November 2024. These statistics present full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount figures by four staff groups, (GPs, Nurses, Direct Patient Care (DPC) and administrative staff), with breakdowns of individual job roles within these high-level groups. For the purposes of NHS workforce statistics, we define full-time working to be 37.5 hours per week. Full-time equivalent is a standardised measure of the workload of an employed person. Using FTE, we can convert part-time and additional working hours into an equivalent number of full-time staff. For example, an individual working 37.5 hours would be classed as 1.0 FTE while a colleague working 30 hours would be 0.8 FTE. The term “headcount” relates to distinct individuals, and as the same person may hold more than one role, care should be taken when interpreting headcount figures. Please refer to the Using this Publication section for information and guidance about the contents of this publication and how it can and cannot be used. England-level time series figures for all job roles are available in the Excel bulletin tables back to September 2015 when this series of Official Statistics began. The Excel file also includes Sub-ICB Location-level FTE and headcount breakdowns for the current reporting period. CSVs containing practice-level summaries and Sub-ICB Location-level counts of individuals are also available. Please refer to the Publication content, analysis, and release schedule in the Using this publication section for more details of what’s available. We are continually working to improve our publications to ensure their contents are as useful and relevant as possible for our users. We welcome feedback from all users to PrimaryCareWorkforce@nhs.net.

The United Kingdom has seen a significant increase in the number of general practitioners (GPs) over the past two decades, reaching nearly 54,000 in 2023. This figure represents a slight decrease from the previous year, which marked the highest number of GPs in the country since 2000. Gender dynamics in general practice A notable trend in the UK's GP workforce is the growing representation of female doctors. In NHS England, female GPs outnumbered their male counterparts, with over 20,000 female GPs compared to approximately 17,800 male GPs as of December 2024. This shift is not limited to England, as Scotland and Wales have also seen a rise in female GPs. In Scotland, there were about 3,200 female GPs compared to 1,900 male GPs in 2023, while Wales reported 1,334 female GPs and 996 male GPs in 2024. Comparison with other European countries While the UK has made strides in increasing its GP workforce, it still ranks third in Europe in terms of the number of practicing GPs. France leads with 65,469 GPs, followed by Germany with 60,601 in 2021. It's worth noting that the UK experienced a spike in GP numbers in 2020, likely due to emergency measures implemented during the early stages of the pandemic, including the introduction of a temporary emergency register and earlier registration of graduates.

How the number of patients per doctor and nurse at GP practices in England has changed over time, and how it differs across age, region and deprivation.

Counts of GP surgeries across England and Wales. Geographies include local authority districts (LADs), built up areas (BUAs) and combined authorities.

This statistic displays the distribution of GP practices in the United Kingdom by devolved health service and patient list size in 2017. In England and Scotland the highest proportion of GP practices have 3,000 to 5,999 patients as of 2017. In the NHS in Wales, the highest percentage of practices have to deal with patient list sizes of 6,000 to 8,999.

The Statement of Fitness for Work (the Med3 form or 'fit note') was introduced in April 2010 across England, Wales and Scotland. It enables healthcare professionals to give advice to their patients about the impact of their health condition on their fitness for work and is used to provide medical evidence for employers or to support a claim to health-related benefits through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). A fit note is issued after the first seven days of sickness absence (when patients can self-certify) if the healthcare professional assesses that the patient’s health affects their fitness for work. The healthcare professional can decide the patient is 'unfit for work' or 'may be fit for work subject to the following advice...' with accompanying notes on suggested adjustments or adaptations to the job role or workplace. In 2012, DWP funded a project to provide general practice's with the ability to produce computer-generated fit notes (eMed3) and this included the capability to collect the aggregated data generated. Fit notes are issued to patients by doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and pharmacists following an assessment of their fitness for work. While they can be written by hand, most fit notes provided by general practice are now computer-generated. This quarterly statistical publication is produced by NHS England in collaboration with The Work and Health Unit, jointly sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health. It presents data on electronic fit notes issued in general practices in England for a given period. This is a ‘cumulative’ data collection. Weekly data collected will continue to be added to existing data. All data for all reporting periods is updated in each quarterly publication. From April 2019 all publications will contain data from practices who have TPP as their system supplier (which was not previously available), and accounts for one third of practices in England, consequently publications from this date may not be comparable to previous publications. All GP practices are mapped using current NHS geographies and recent changes may have resulted in a small number of practices not being mapped historically. These are shown as 'Unallocated' but are included in the England total. NHS England will publish data on a quarterly basis in October, January, April and July.

Data are extracted as a quarterly snapshot in time from the GP Payments system maintained by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). This release is an accurate snapshot as at 1 January 2016. Since April 2014, geographical references have been taken from 2011 census information. GP Practice level data are released in single year of age (SYOA) and 5-year age bands, both of which finish at 95+, split by gender and aggregated. Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England Region and NHS England Commissioning Region level data are released in 5-year age bands which now finish at 95+, split by gender and aggregated. Unlike previous versions of this report, there is no suppression of data for GP Practices with 100 or fewer registered patients. An additional machine readable version is provided in practice/LSOA/totals format. Further information on LSOA is available via the link at the end of the page. New Health Geography structure: Please note that this publication reflects NHS England's new health geography structure which became effective 1 April 2015: NHS England Area Teams have been replaced by NHS England Regions. Furthermore, in addition to the 3-digit ODS codes, this report now includes the ONS 9-digit codes for each CCG, Region and Commissioning Region.

This publications is one of three that make up the NHS Staff 1997 - 2007 publication. The other two are: Non-Medical staff 1997 - 2007 Medical and Dental staff 1997 - 2007 You can access both of these sections and an overview of the whole publication via the links. Summary The general practice census is collected each year and records numbers and details of GPs in England along with information on their practices, staff, patients and the services they provide. General Practice staff, 30 September 2007 - Detailed Results The detailed results contain further data tables for September 2007 for England, by Strategic Health Authority area and selected statistics by primary care trust.

PLEASE NOTE: Following the consultation on the proposal to stop producing this report, it has been confirmed that this report will continue to be produced by NHS Digital. The format in which it will continue is yet to be finalised. Data are extracted as a quarterly snapshot in time from the GP Payments system maintained by NHS Digital. This release is an accurate snapshot as at 1 October 2016. Since April 2014, geographical references have been taken from 2011 census information. GP level data are released in single year of age (SYOA) and 5-year age bands, both of which finish at 95+, split by gender and aggregated. Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England Region and NHS England Commissioning Region level data are released in 5-year age bands which now finish at 95+, split by gender and aggregated. Unlike previous versions of this report, there is no suppression of data for practices with 100 or fewer registered patients. An additional machine readable version is provided in practice/LSOA/totals format. Further information on LSOA is available via the link at the end of the page. New Health Geography structure: Please note that this publication reflects NHS England's health geography structure as at 1 April 2016. (This includes the 2015 change, whereby NHS England Area Teams were replaced by NHS England Regions.) Furthermore, in addition to the 3-digit ODS codes, this report now includes the ONS 9-digit codes for each CCG, Region and Commissioning Region.

The Organisation Data Service (ODS) is provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). It is responsible for the publication of all organisation and practitioner codes and national policy and standards with regard to the majority of organisation codes, and encompasses the functionality and services previously provided by the National Administrative Codes Service (NACS).

These code standards form part of the NHS data standards. The HSCIC is also responsible for the day-to-day operation of the ODS and for its overall development.

Data for General Medical Practices, General Medical Practitioners, Prescribing Cost Centres and Dispensaries are supplied by the NHS Prescription Services and are used to facilitate their remit to remunerate dispensing contractors and provide the NHS with financial, prescribing and drug information. Users need to be aware of a number of characteristics of the data:

• The GP practices file contains all prescribing cost centres as opposed to solely GP practices. Those that offer Out of Hours services, operate as Walk-In Centres or are situated within a prison are identified with a type code in field 26

• GPs may have more than one identifier within the file – one for each practice they prescribe from. Note that the practice code is supplied in field 15 of the practitioner file.

• Some codes do not identify a real individual, but exist to track prescribing activity of GPs working temporarily; i.e. a ‘bucket’ code assigned to a practice, for ad-hoc use by locums.

Some key consequences include:

• The codes are not unique identifiers for GPs. They are more accurately described as identifying prescribing cost centres, and their relationship with a location (GP practice).

• The data does not provide an accurate depiction of the number of GPs practicing within the UK.

Further information relating to the contents and usage of each file can be found on the further information link, or from systems.hscic.gov.uk/data/ods.

This statistic displays the average number of patients per GP practice in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2017. In 2017, there were, on average, over 7.6 thousand patients to each GP practice in the United Kingdom, the highest ratio in the provided time interval. Note: the NHS now publishes data for each country separately. See the number of patients per GP practice in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

NHS Payments to General Practice, England 2022/23 provides information on NHS payments to individual providers of general practice services in England. Figures are given for the main payment categories - which include Global Sum, Balance of PMS expenditure, Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) and Local Incentive Schemes. It is not a record of the amount of money available for direct patient care, nor the total invested in patient care through general practice. Instead, it constitutes the majority of actual monies paid to practices for all activities and costs during the 2022/23 financial year. Payments relating to Primary Care Networks (PCNs) are included covering eight categories PCN Participation, PCN Leadership, PCN Support, PCN Workforce, PCN Care Home Premium, PCN Extended Hours Access, PCN Investment and Impact Fund and PCN Enhanced Access. The pandemic affected the way General Practice operated between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and placed additional responsibilities on GP practices for which they received additional payments. The report for 2022/23 includes three additional categories for COVID-19 related payments, COVID-19 Support and Expansion, COVID-19 Immunisation and Long Covid.

SUMMARYThis analysis, designed and executed by Ribble Rivers Trust, identifies areas across England with the greatest levels of hypertension (in persons of all ages). Please read the below information to gain a full understanding of what the data shows and how it should be interpreted.ANALYSIS METHODOLOGYThe analysis was carried out using Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) data, derived from NHS Digital, relating to hypertension (in persons of all ages).This information was recorded at the GP practice level. However, GP catchment areas are not mutually exclusive: they overlap, with some areas covered by 30+ GP practices. Therefore, to increase the clarity and usability of the data, the GP-level statistics were converted into statistics based on Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) census boundaries.The percentage of each MSOA’s population (all ages) with hypertension was estimated. This was achieved by calculating a weighted average based on:The percentage of the MSOA area that was covered by each GP practice’s catchment areaOf the GPs that covered part of that MSOA: the percentage of registered patients that have that illness The estimated percentage of each MSOA’s population with hypertension was then combined with Office for National Statistics Mid-Year Population Estimates (2019) data for MSOAs, to estimate the number of people in each MSOA with hypertension , within the relevant age range.Each MSOA was assigned a relative score between 1 and 0 (1 = worst, 0 = best) based on:A) the PERCENTAGE of the population within that MSOA who are estimated to have hypertension B) the NUMBER of people within that MSOA who are estimated to have hypertension An average of scores A & B was taken, and converted to a relative score between 1 and 0 (1= worst, 0 = best). The closer to 1 the score, the greater both the number and percentage of the population in the MSOA that are estimated to have hypertension , compared to other MSOAs. In other words, those are areas where it’s estimated a large number of people suffer from hypertension, and where those people make up a large percentage of the population, indicating there is a real issue with hypertension within the population and the investment of resources to address that issue could have the greatest benefits.LIMITATIONS1. GP data for the financial year 1st April 2018 – 31st March 2019 was used in preference to data for the financial year 1st April 2019 – 31st March 2020, as the onset of the COVID19 pandemic during the latter year could have affected the reporting of medical statistics by GPs. However, for 53 GPs (out of 7670) that did not submit data in 2018/19, data from 2019/20 was used instead. Note also that some GPs (997 out of 7670) did not submit data in either year. This dataset should be viewed in conjunction with the ‘Health and wellbeing statistics (GP-level, England): Missing data and potential outliers’ dataset, to determine areas where data from 2019/20 was used, where one or more GPs did not submit data in either year, or where there were large discrepancies between the 2018/19 and 2019/20 data (differences in statistics that were > mean +/- 1 St.Dev.), which suggests erroneous data in one of those years (it was not feasible for this study to investigate this further), and thus where data should be interpreted with caution. Note also that there are some rural areas (with little or no population) that do not officially fall into any GP catchment area (although this will not affect the results of this analysis if there are no people living in those areas).2. Although all of the obesity/inactivity-related illnesses listed can be caused or exacerbated by inactivity and obesity, it was not possible to distinguish from the data the cause of the illnesses in patients: obesity and inactivity are highly unlikely to be the cause of all cases of each illness. By combining the data with data relating to levels of obesity and inactivity in adults and children (see the ‘Levels of obesity, inactivity and associated illnesses: Summary (England)’ dataset), we can identify where obesity/inactivity could be a contributing factor, and where interventions to reduce obesity and increase activity could be most beneficial for the health of the local population.3. It was not feasible to incorporate ultra-fine-scale geographic distribution of populations that are registered with each GP practice or who live within each MSOA. Populations might be concentrated in certain areas of a GP practice’s catchment area or MSOA and relatively sparse in other areas. Therefore, the dataset should be used to identify general areas where there are high levels of hypertension, rather than interpreting the boundaries between areas as ‘hard’ boundaries that mark definite divisions between areas with differing levels of hypertension .TO BE VIEWED IN COMBINATION WITH:This dataset should be viewed alongside the following datasets, which highlight areas of missing data and potential outliers in the data:Health and wellbeing statistics (GP-level, England): Missing data and potential outliersLevels of obesity, inactivity and associated illnesses (England): Missing dataDOWNLOADING THIS DATATo access this data on your desktop GIS, download the ‘Levels of obesity, inactivity and associated illnesses: Summary (England)’ dataset.DATA SOURCESThis dataset was produced using:Quality and Outcomes Framework data: Copyright © 2020, Health and Social Care Information Centre. The Health and Social Care Information Centre is a non-departmental body created by statute, also known as NHS Digital.GP Catchment Outlines. Copyright © 2020, Health and Social Care Information Centre. The Health and Social Care Information Centre is a non-departmental body created by statute, also known as NHS Digital. Data was cleaned by Ribble Rivers Trust before use.COPYRIGHT NOTICEThe reproduction of this data must be accompanied by the following statement:© Ribble Rivers Trust 2021. Analysis carried out using data that is: Copyright © 2020, Health and Social Care Information Centre. The Health and Social Care Information Centre is a non-departmental body created by statute, also known as NHS Digital.CaBA HEALTH & WELLBEING EVIDENCE BASEThis dataset forms part of the wider CaBA Health and Wellbeing Evidence Base.