Staff directly employed by the NHS: as at 30 June 2023
Data on medical, dental, nursing and midwifery staff, as at 30 June 2023.
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Introduction
This statistical release provides summary statistics on staff directly employed by NHS Wales and focusses on the number of full-time equivalent staff employed on the last day of the latest available quarter. The release includes analyses by staff group at Wales level. Data by occupational code and NHS organisation are published on StatsWales.
The statistics are sourced from the NHS Electronic Staff Record, provided by Health Education and Improvement Wales. Staffing levels are best measured by using full-time equivalent (FTE) data. One FTE is the equivalent of a person working the standard hours for their grade. Overall headcount numbers are also published on StatsWales and are used for analysis of staff characteristics (StatsWales) in the annual statistical release.
Workforce data for primary care services such as General Medical Practitioners and NHS Dental Practitioners are not included in this release and are published separately as they are independent NHS contractors.
Main points
Between 30 June 2022 and 30 June 2023, in terms of full-time equivalent numbers:
- the total number of staff increased by 3,433 (3.8%) to 94,325
- medical and dental staff increased by 301 (4.0%) to 7,879
- nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff increased by 1,383 (3.8%) to 37,418
- scientific, therapeutic and technical staff increased by 715 (4.6%) to 16,398
- administration and estates staff increased by 912 (4.0%) to 23,545
- ambulance staff increased by 114 (3.9%) to 3,024
- healthcare assistants and other support staff decreased by 1 (less than 0.1%) to 5,943
- other staff (including general payments and other non-medical staff) increased by 8 (7.8%) to 117
Between 30 June 2022 and 30 June 2023, the total staff headcount increased by 3,740 (3.5%) to 109,204.
Summary of staff directly employed
Figure 1: Number of staff (full-time equivalent) directly employed by NHS Wales on 30 June, 2019 to 2023
Description of Figure 1: Line chart showing that the number of FTE staff has increased in every year since 2019.
Source: Electronic Staff Record, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW)
NHS staff summary by staff group and year on StatsWales
The total number of FTE staff directly employed by the NHS has increased over the long-term with 17.9% more staff in June 2023 than there were in June 2019.
Figure 2: Number of full-time equivalent staff directly employed by NHS Wales in post on 30 June 2022 and 30 June 2023 by staff group
Description of Figure 2: A bar chart showing that nursing, midwifery and health visiting group is the largest staff group with almost 40% of the total workforce. The number of FTE staff for all groups has increased since 30 June 2022, except for the healthcare assistants and other support staff group.
Source: Electronic Staff Record, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW)
NHS staff summary by staff group and year on StatsWales
The annual increase in total FTE staff between June 2022 and June 2023 was 3.8%. The change in the number of FTE staff varied from a 7.8% increase in the number of other staff to a decrease of less than 0.1% in the number of healthcare assistants and other support staff.
Quality and methodology information
The data is sourced from the NHS Electronic Staff Record provided by Health Education and Improvement Wales. Further information is available in the quality report.
This data has some seasonal patterns. Medical and dental, and nursing staff numbers tend to decline in the period up until August and then increase from September as new graduates enter the workforce. As such, comparisons are made with the same quarter from the previous year.
The percentages in this release are rounded to the nearest 0.1. Percentage point changes are calculated based on the unrounded numbers.
Data on Sickness absence in the NHS and vacancies for staff directly employed by NHS Wales are published on a quarterly basis. Note that there are minor differences in how staff groups are defined between the two releases. These are detailed in the quality report.
Full details of quality issues identified with the data in recent years are provided in the quality report.
Well-being of Future Generations Act (WFG)
The Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 is about improving the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales. The Act puts in place seven wellbeing goals for Wales. These are for a more equal, prosperous, resilient, healthier and globally responsible Wales, with cohesive communities and a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language. Under section (10)(1) of the Act, the Welsh Ministers must (a) publish indicators (“national indicators”) that must be applied for the purpose of measuring progress towards the achievement of the wellbeing goals, and (b) lay a copy of the national indicators before Senedd Cymru. Under section 10(8) of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, where the Welsh Ministers revise the national indicators, they must as soon as reasonably practicable (a) publish the indicators as revised and (b) lay a copy of them before the Senedd. These national indicators were laid before the Senedd in 2021. The indicators laid on 14 December 2021 replace the set laid on 16 March 2016.
Information on the indicators, along with narratives for each of the wellbeing goals and associated technical information is available in the Wellbeing of Wales report.
Further information on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
The statistics included in this release could also provide supporting narrative to the national indicators and be used by public services boards in relation to their local wellbeing assessments and local wellbeing plans.