Gweithlu'r GIG (staff a gyflogir yn uniongyrchol gan GIG Cymru): adroddiad ansawdd

Data description

Quarterly statistics on the number of staff directly employed by NHS Wales categorised by NHS organisation, staff group, area of work and job type or grade; also includes statistics on sickness absence and vacancy rates.

Data are taken at a single point in time (the last day) in each quarter.

Classification system

Statistics for staff directly employed and sickness absence are official statistics.

Statistics for vacancies are classed as official statistics in development. This means that they are in the testing phase and not yet fully developed.

Sector coverage

Data in this statistical release covers staff employed by all NHS health boards and organisations in Wales.

All staff are coded by NHS Occupation Codes (NHS England). These define and identify the NHS workforce and are presented in the manual in matrix form by different general Staff Groups.

Statistical unit

These statistics present quarterly information about the headcount and full-time equivalent (FTE) of staff directly employed by NHS in Wales. One FTE is the equivalent of a person working the standard hours for their grade.

Statistical population

These statistics present information about staff directly employed by NHS in Wales, including health boards and other NHS organisations.

It does not include staff employed in primary care settings such as general practices and NHS dental practices who are usually independent contractors, unless the staff member is directly employed by the health board. This can happen if a primary care setting is being health board managed at the time of data extraction.

Reference area

These statistics cover Wales, broken down by health boards and other NHS organisations.

Time coverage

Statistics for staff directly employed by NHS Wales are presented on a quarterly basis from 2018, and on an annual basis before that. Statistics for sickness absence are presented on a quarterly basis from 2009, and on vacancies from 2022.

Between 2022 and 2025 annual data referring to the 30 September in each year is available for staff directly employed.

Underlying data for these statistics are published on StatsWales.

The majority of data in this release and the accompanying StatsWales tables comes from the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), provided by Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW). The ESR is a payroll and human resources system which covers all NHS organisations in Wales. A quarterly extract is downloaded from the ESR Data Warehouse detailing all NHS staff in Wales on the ESR at the last day of the quarter, aggregated to occupation code level. A detailed breakdown of staff grades and areas of work used in the ESR is available in the NHS Occupation Code Manual.

Staff directly employed by the NHS

The data includes all staff directly employed by the NHS in Wales. Only those who are directly employed by NHS Wales are included.

The following staff are included.

• Directly employed staff on maternity or paternity leave, sickness absence or career break.
• There are a small number of general practices that do not have a partner in place at points in time and these practices are managed by the health board; staff in these practices are included if the practice is being health board managed on the reference date.
• Staff employed as out-of-hours GPs if they're directly employed by the NHS.
• Some NHS directly employed staff who work in community settings which may include the use general practice consultation rooms, such as health visitors, are included.
• Some NHS directly employed staff who work in community settings which may include the use consultation rooms in primary care settings, are included.
• Staff who are specifically chairpersons or board members.
• Staff with medical or dental job type with no qualification recorded.

The following staff are excluded.

• Agency and bank staff are not included.
• Directly employed locum staff.
• Agency employed locum staff.
• General Medical Practitioner Locums and directly employed General Medical Practitioners.
• Community or public health medical and dental staff on general payments.
• Staff with no occupational code recorded Primary care staff such as those employed in general medical practices and NHS dental practices are excluded.
• NHS dental practices, community pharmacies and optometries are independent contractors that are not directly employed by the health board, therefore they are not included. 
• Staff who have performed bank shifts in the reference period.
• Staff who have volunteered in the NHS in the reference period.
• Staff who have an FTE less than or equal to 0.
• Domiciliary care workers.
• Modern apprentices.
• Staff employed in social services.

FTE calculation

One FTE is the equivalent of a person working the standard hours for their grade. The large majority (over 90%) of directly employed staff in NHS Wales are on Agenda for Change pay scales (with the exception of doctors, dentists and very senior managers). Those on Agenda for Change pay scales are contracted to work a standard working week of 37.5 hours if full-time. While not on the Agenda for Change pay scale, medical consultants work in sessions which are 3.75 hours per session, with ten sessions a week, meaning that one full-time equivalent is equal to 37.5 hours. Doctors in training typically work 40 hours a week.

FTE numbers are calculated by dividing the number of hours staff in a grade are contracted to work by the standard hours for that grade. For example, if staff were contracted to work 18.75 hours and the standard hours is 37.5 hours, then this equates to 0.5 FTE. In this way, part-time staff are converted into an equivalent number of full-time staff. FTE better reflects the amount of staff employed at a given point in time than the headcount, therefore  FTE is used as the headline measure  in the statistical release.

For staff working in more than one assignment (job), the full-time equivalent for all assignments is included.

Sickness absence

Sickness absence rates are calculated using FTE calendar days and include non-working days, which is 365 days of the year (366 days for a leap year). This may result in a slight undercount of sickness absence rates calculated in this way when compared to sickness absence rates calculated using FTE worked days only, as non-working days such as weekends are included in both the numerator (if they are included in a period of reported sickness) and denominator. Typically not all non-working days lost to sickness will have been reported by an employee and therefore captured on the ESR.

The use of the term FTE in this context means, for example, that if a full-time member of staff is off sick for 5 days (including any non-working days) then the numerator for the rate=5, and the denominator=365. However, if a member of staff who works 0.5 FTE hours, is off sick for 5 days (including any non-working days) then the numerator=5 and the denominator=182.5.

This methodology is consistent throughout this publication series so that different NHS organisations and staff groups can be compared fairly over a time series.

Vacancies

A ‘vacancy’ is defined as the difference between the FTE staff budget from the finance general ledger and the FTE staff in post from ESR. The vacancy rate is the number of vacancies divided by the number of funded FTE posts recorded on the general ledger. 

Data on vacancies is provided by staff group as determined by the subjective code rather than the NHS occupation code as it is the only staff group data item that is consistent in both the finance general ledger and ESR.

The data includes vacancies for all staff who would be directly employed by the NHS in Wales. Agency and bank staff are not included. Primary care staff such as those employed in general medical practices and NHS dental practices are excluded as primary care practices are contracted differently to staff directly employed by the NHS.

One FTE is the equivalent of a person working the standard hours for their grade as defined in the staff directly employed by the NHS section.

Source data

Data for staff directly employed by NHS Wales and for sickness absence is sourced from ESR, supplied by HEIW.

For vacancies, data is collected via Welsh Government vacancy returns, supplied by each NHS organisation, based on data from the finance general ledger and ESR.

Frequency of data collection

Data is collected every quarter, based on the position at the last day of the month for all statistics in the release.

Data collection

The data in this release and the accompanying StatsWales tables comes from the ESR, provided by HEIW every quarter in Excel format.

Aggregated data is provided for staff directly employed by NHS Wales. For sickness absence data is provided by staff group based on mapping occupational codes for individual staff. A detailed breakdown of staff grades and areas of work used in the ESR is available in the NHS Occupation Code Manual.

Each NHS organisation submits the vacancy return to Welsh Government every quarter. The return is in Excel format and details the number of FTE posts as recorded on the finance general ledger and the number of FTE staff in post as recorded on the ESR on the last day of the quarter. Data is provided by staff group as determined by the subjective code.

Data validation

Validation checks, such as consistency checks in the raw data and in the code, sense checks, and peer review processes, are performed by Welsh Government statisticians and queries referred to HEIW and NHS contacts where necessary.

Once validated, data is published in line with statement on confidentiality and data access each quarter.

Quality assurance

Our statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority). They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. These include automated checks in the code, an extensive peer review process, documenting and addressing potential quality issues, ensuring transparency. They are produced free from any political interference.

User needs

The statistics provide robust, transparent and reliable information about the NHS workforce. They are essential for workforce planning, policy development and scrutiny. They also inform the public about the staff employed by the largest employer in Wales.

The main users are:

• ministers, members of the Senedd, and the Members Research Service 
• NHS organisations 
• the Health, Social Care and Early Years Department in the Welsh Government
• professional bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing and British Medical Association
• local authorities
• the research community 
• students, academics and universities
• charities
• individual citizens and private companies

If you would like to be added to our circulation list, please let us know by e-mailing stats.healthinfo@gov.wales.

As it acts as the payroll system, the ESR is overall an accurate and reliable source of administrative data. Every person employed by the NHS has a record and the headcount and FTE numbers are robust.

Allocation of staff to occupation codes (which aggregate to staff groups) are generally reliable but are performed locally, which may lead to some inconsistencies at specific occupation codes. However, HEIW and NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership work with NHS organisations to improve the consistency of occupational coding in Wales.

Information on the characteristics of staff is also sourced from the Electronic Staff Record. Staff characteristics statistics are based on records where a known status was recorded. The percentage of not stated and missing records is included indicating the level of uncertainty with these statistics. If the staff with missing data have a systemically different characteristic profile than those with a known status, these statistics would change.

The methodology has been applied consistently across the majority of NHS organisations. However, one local health board (Aneurin Bevan) has been unable to supply the number of funded FTE posts through the finance general ledger to date. For the data supplied to date, data for the registered nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff group and the nursing, midwifery and health visiting support staff group has been supplied based on ‘establishment control’ through the ESR. This method is similar to obtaining funded FTE posts through the general ledger and is likely to be broadly comparable to the method used in other NHS organisations. Data for funded posts for all other staff groups has been supplied by asking the departments directly, which is unlikely to be consistent with the method used in all other NHS organisations.

FTE staff in post on ESR do not normally include bank, agency, contractors or other non-payroll staff. This may result in a small over-estimate of the number of vacancies and vacancy rate as there may have been staff delivering services but not recorded on ESR on the reference date.

The number of vacancies in the medical and dental staff group may be over-estimated due to differences in how FTEs are counted between the finance general ledger and ESR. A full-time member of this staff group may count as 1 FTE on ESR through their contract defined as 10 sessions per week. However, in practice some staff may work 12 sessions per week and may be recorded as 1.2 FTE on the finance general ledger. This would create a ‘vacancy’ of 0.2 through this data collection process, but in practice there is no vacancy as the staff member worked longer than their contracted hours.

Allocating staff to a subjective code in both the finance general ledger and on ESR involve manual processes and may result in a small number of staff having a mismatch of subjective codes between the two sources. As staff move posts, updates to FTEs per subjective code may be more timely on the finance general ledger than they are to the staff in post numbers through ESR. Therefore, there may be a small discrepancy in the number of vacancies reported and the actual number of vacancies on the reference date.

There can be a negative number of vacancies or vacancy rate if the number of staff in post on ESR exceeds the budgeted number of staff through the finance general ledger. This can happen for a number of reasons including where: an NHS organisation knowingly over-recruits staff, for example where they expect a high turnover of staff; certain non-recurring, short-term/temporary, capital or external funding for posts is not included in the budget for posts on the finance general ledger; staff budgets are allocated to a staff group on the finance general ledger, but in practice the budget is used to fund staff interchangeably or in multiple staff groups; internationally recruited nurses are temporarily recorded as support staff until registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and recorded as registered nurses.

Not all services within NHS organisations aim to recruit the full number of FTE budgeted staff. Some services may choose to use their staff budget flexibly to deliver their priorities and/or may choose to use their pool of temporary staff (nurse bank, locums, agency) flexibly throughout the year as demands on the service change. Therefore, a small number of reported ‘vacancies’ are planned in some circumstances.

Data presented may be revised in future editions of the statistical release.

Each edition of the release presents data correct as at the date submitted to Welsh Government.

In the unlikely event of incorrect data being published, revisions would be made and users informed in conjunction with our Revisions, errors and postponements arrangements.

Data are not routinely revised, but if an error is found a revision would be published in conjunction with our Revisions, errors and postponements arrangements.

Data quality and coding changes: staff directly employed

A number of temporary data quality issues have been identified with ESR data.

Ongoing quality and coding issues: staff directly employed

District Nurses

It was identified in 2016 that Cardiff and Vale had a large reduction in district nurses between 2015 and 2016. In the following year Cardiff and Vale re-coded a number of nurses back to district nurses. Following enhancements to the Electronic Staff Record and the link to Nursing & Midwifery Council data it is possible to see how many district nurses (and other staff) have the relevant Specialist Practitioner: District Nurse (SP:DN) qualification. The NHS Occupation Codes Manual clearly states that it should only be those with the relevant qualification and at pay band 6 or above coded as district nurses.

As at 30 September 2024, nearly half (46%) of district nurses were recorded as having the additional SP:DN qualification. The percentage varied widely between health boards and ranged from 84% to 14%.

Of all nursing staff with the SP:DN, just over half (53%) were ‘other first level’ nurses, whilst 35% were district nurses.

Healthcare Assistants (H1s) and Nursing Assistants / Auxiliaries (N9s)

During 2018 Betsi Cadwaladr and Cwm Taf Health Boards re-coded many of their former Health Care Assistants (HCAs) (occupation code H1) as Nursing Assistants / Auxiliaries (N9), bringing them in line with most of the other health boards. To show as comparable a position as possible over time, HCAs working in nursing services (shown separately in previous years) are now included within the nursing, midwifery and health visiting group (unqualified and total staff). There remain some health boards who have yet to recode H1s to N9s.

Other 1^st level nurses with their area of work as ‘community’ / Community Psychiatric Nurses

During 2018 Betsi Cadwaladr introduced a formal process for matching information on funded posts in an organisation to the details of the staff currently employed in those posts, known as ‘Establishment Control’, for their nursing, midwifery and health visiting occupation coding. This led to a large number of nursing staff being re-coded to the ‘community’ area of work and an increase in Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPN). Between 2017 and 2018 there is a doubling of other 1st level nurses recorded as working in the community in Betsi Cadwaladr, accounting for most of the overall increase at a Wales level. Similarly there is a trebling of CPNs in Betsi Cadwaladr between 2017 and 2018. It is not possible to recode this historically.

Other 2^nd level nurses

In 1989 changes to nurse education driven by 'Project 2000' marked the end of Enrolled Nurse training and many Enrolled Nurses converted to 1^st level. During 2019, the new Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) Professional Registration interface was introduced, providing part & level of the NMC register data, e.g. Level 1 (Staff Nurse) or Level 2 (Enrolled Nurse). Therefore, Enrolled Nurse occupation code should be N7* or N5* with an Enrolled Nurse ‘job role’. Health boards were asked to validate their Level 1 and Level 2 nursing data and re-code them if necessary, in line with the guidance issued. However, as the coding is held at Position level, many staff were re-coded incorrectly leading to a large increase in the numbers of ‘Other Level 2 nurses’.

Historical and resolved quality and coding issues

Health visitors

It was identified in 2022 that Hywel Dda had a large reduction in health visitors from 31 December 2021. It appeared a number of health visitors were recorded as Other 1^st Level nurses in community services. However, by 31 December 2022 there had been movement of staff back to health visitor codes with numbers more in-line with previous years.

Ambulance staff

In April 2019 significant changes were made to the ambulance section of the NHS Occupation Codes Manual. More options were made available and some new staff groups/roles were created to provide improved data quality and allow better comparison between Ambulance Trusts across the UK. The ambulance staff group now includes ‘emergency call taking and dispatch staff’ who were previously coded in the ‘administration and estates’ staff group. The notes under the ambulance table in the annual release should be read in conjunction with the table, as direct comparison across the years is not possible.

In August 2023, it was noticed that ambulance staff recorded in some new occupation codes were not being included in the published data. This affected ambulance staff coded as ‘Emergency / Urgent Care Support Worker - Patient Transport Service’ from December 2020 and ‘Specialist practitioner (call handling)’ from March 2022. Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust data was revised in the publication at 31 March 2023. This resulted in an increase in ambulance staff ranging from 2.3% to 10.3% in each of the quarters affected.

Paramedics / technicians

In October 2017 Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) implemented a national re-structuring programme for paramedics. Those paramedics who were prepared to undertake additional training leading to additional competencies and increased responsibilities, were promoted to Band 6. Some paramedics chose not to undertake the additional training and remained at Band 5; they are now classed as technicians. This was the main cause of the reduction in the number of paramedics and the increase in technicians at 30 September 2018.

Ambulance personnel

Following an evaluation of staff grades by WAST during 2015-16, staff previously classified as HCAs and other support staff were re-classified as ambulance personnel; further re-classification took place during 2017 affecting numbers in 2015 and 2016.

Children’s nurses / midwives

In 2016 Abertawe Bro Morgannwg re-coded a number of midwives and other staff to children’s nurses; Betsi Cadwaladr also undertook a data cleansing exercise the same year; Cwm Taf Morgannwg and Cardiff and Vale re-coded a number of staff to children’s nurses during 2019. These re-codings are likely to have been the main reason for the increases seen in the nursing table in the annual release for those years.

Nursing support staff

In August 2023, it was noticed that nursing support staff recorded in some new occupation codes were not being included in the published data from March 2020. Data was revised in the publication at 31 March 2023. This resulted in an increase in nursing support staff of less than 0.2% in each of the quarters affected.

In May 2024, it was noticed that 17 FTE nursing support staff were incorrectly recorded as registered nurses in the published data for 30 September 2023, and data was revised.

1 FTE children’s nurse was incorrectly recorded in the Adult and General area of work in the published data for 30 September 2023 and 31 December 2023. Data was revised in the publication at 31 March 2024 to show the staff in the Paediatric Nursing area of work.

GP trainees

NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) became the lead employer for General Practice (Doctors in Training only) from 2015 onwards. Prior to that GPs in training who rotated into a GP surgery would be employed by the surgery and therefore leave the NHS Wales payroll. Since 2015 NWSSP keeps continuous employment and these figures are shown against NWSSP (hosted by Velindre NHS Trust until June 2021). In addition to these, GP trainees who are on hospital rotations are recorded under the specialty of their current role against NWSSP from 2015 onwards. Previously these trainees were recorded against the local health boards (LHBs) which hosted the trainee. As a result the numbers recorded against the LHBs in the relevant specialties fell in 2015.

GP trainee figures were shown against Velindre NHS Trust from 2015 to 2021 as it hosted NWSSP until it became an independent organisation on 1 April 2021. Staff transitioned from Velindre NHS Trust to NWSSP between January and May 2021. From June 2021 all NWSSP staff were recorded separately.

Dentists (non-hospital dental staff)

NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) has now become the lead employer for Foundation Dentists (trainees). As the single lead employer arrangement is rolled out to other grades and specialities, similar to the set-up for GP trainees, more trainees (both medical and dental) will come under Velindre.

In previous years, General Dental Practitioners (occupation code 971) were excluded as they are independent contractors and not directly employed by the NHS. However, during 2017, occupation code 970 (Community Health Service Dental) was removed from the NHS Occupation Codes Manual and staff were re-coded to the most appropriate alternative. In many cases, they were re-coded to 971 (General Dental Practitioners) and were therefore not included in the data published up to 2017. Other LHBs followed suit in 2018 resulting in a further drop in community / public health dentists. However, as they are effectively doing the same job as before, they have since been added back into the data from 2009, and data tables have been revised accordingly.

Scientific, therapeutic and technical staff

In 2014, following an extensive consultation, changes in classification and coding were made to the healthcare science staff group. Re-coding of these records affected staff that had previously not been included within the existing healthcare science staff as they were thought to fit better within the scientific, therapeutic and technical or estates staff. Note that comparisons between years for these staff groups are affected by these changes.

In July 2024, it was noticed that scientific, therapeutic and technical staff in some occupation codes had not been included in recently published data. Data was revised in the publication at 30 June 2024. This resulted in an increase of 1.0 FTE in December 2023 and an increase of 42.5 FTE in March 2024. This mostly affected Qualified Healthcare Science and Public Health Scientific staff and was an increase of 0.01% and 0.25% in scientific, therapeutic and technical staff respectively.

Healthcare scientists

In August 2023, it was noticed that healthcare scientists recorded in some new occupation codes were not being included in the published data from March 2021. Data was revised in the publication at 31 March 2023. This resulted in an increase in healthcare scientists of less than 0.4% in each of the quarters affected.

Other staff

Each year there are a small number of records with a valid medical occupation code but with an invalid or missing grade code. These records had been moved to ‘Other / non-medical staff’ but for the statistical release detailing NHS staff numbers at September 2019 the records were deleted from 2009 onwards. In future, any such records will be flagged with the relevant LHBs at the earliest opportunity so that amendments can be made if necessary.

Medical and dental staff changes

A Foundation House Officer is a grade of medical staff undertaking the 'Foundation Programme', a two-year, general postgraduate medical training programme which forms the bridge between medical school and specialist/general practice training. Being a Foundation House Officer has been compulsory for all newly qualified medical staff since 2005 and has replaced the traditional grades of House Officer and Senior House Officer.

Specialty doctors

Negotiations between NHS Employers and The British Medical Association’s (BMA) Staff and Associate Specialist Committee resulted in a new contract for the associate specialist grade and the creation of the new specialty doctor grade from 1 April 2008.

From this date, the grades of staff grade, clinical assistant, hospital practitioner and the old contract of associate specialist were closed to new applicants. Existing eligible staff within the grades listed above and senior clinical medical officers and clinical medical officers had the opportunity to apply to be re-graded to the new associate specialist or specialty doctor grades.

The result of these new contracts is seen in 2009 and later, with the decline in staff grades and growth of the specialty doctor grade. It is expected that numbers will continue to grow in the future.

Support staff

Support staff, within the Health Care Assistants and other support staff group, includes those who do not have formal NVQ or local Health Care Assistant training. Included are domestic and catering staff as well as some staff dealing directly with patients such as ward receptionists and clerks.

Sickness absence

Sickness absence statistics relate to all staff directly employed by the NHS in Wales during the recording periods.

Directly employed staff are recorded on the ESR which acts as a data source for both the quarterly NHS Staff directly employed statistics and the Sickness absence statistics.

Statistics are presented on a quarterly basis from the start of a calendar year onwards.

Data included in the release are published on StatsWales.

For data relating to the period of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, NHS staff who are self-isolating are not counted as being off sick and are therefore not included in the statistics. In response to the pandemic, a separate data collection of management information about the sickness absence of NHS staff was established. The management information provided a timelier indication of sickness absence rates but was not collected via the same method as the Sickness absence in the NHS statistics and was not subject to the same level of quality assurance. For these reasons, the data in the two collections will differ and the official statistics in the Sickness absence in the NHS release should be considered the authoritative source of data on sickness absence of NHS Wales staff.

Vacancies

NHS vacancy statistics relate to vacancies for all staff who would be directly employed by the NHS in Wales during the recording periods. Such staff are recorded on the ESR which acts as a data source for this dataset as well as the quarterly NHS Staff directly employed statistics and the Sickness absence statistics.

Any staff recorded as doctors in training, dentists in training, or pre-registration pharmacists, are not included. There are complexities in counting ‘vacancies’ of these types of posts as local health boards hold a budget for these staff but the majority will be employed by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership through the Single Lead Employer (SLE) scheme. Health boards can also employ staff coded as trainees directly, without being formal trainees through the SLE scheme.

Data to date does not include the NHS Wales Performance and Improvement (formerly known as NHS Wales Executive), which is hosted by Public Health Wales; in December 2022 it was estimated that about 180 FTE staff were employed in NHS Wales Performance and Improvement.

Statistics are presented on a quarterly basis from the start of a calendar year onwards.

Data included in the release are published on StatsWales. 

Data is available from December 2022; however, data was initially published by staff group at Wales level only. Data by staff group at Wales level, and for all staff at NHS organisation level was published for June 2023. Data by staff group and NHS organisation is available from September 2023.

Strengths and limitations of the data

Strengths

• Data has coverage for all NHS organisations for staff directly employed by the NHS in Wales. 
• Data is available by staff group although some differ slightly to those used for quarterly reporting on NHS staff directly employed numbers; and differ further compared to the NHS vacancy statistics.
• A 12-month moving average is shown within reports to provide clearer information on long term changes to the rate of sickness absence as there is wide seasonal variation throughout the year.
• Data is reported quarterly with monthly sickness absence rates provided via our StatsWales website.
• Data has coverage for all NHS organisations and includes vacancies for most staff who would be directly employed by the NHS in Wales. 
• Data is available by staff group although some differ to those used for quarterly reporting on NHS Staff directly employed and NHS Sickness absence rates.
• Data is reported quarterly to provide more timely data.

Limitations

• Sickness absence is subject to marked seasonal variation however reports show a 12-month moving average to more clearly show long term trend and comparisons are made with the same quarter in previous years. 
• While lower sickness absence rates, in general, indicate lower levels of sickness absence it should be noted that lower rates can also indicate under reporting of sickness absence. 
• Staff recruitment is likely to have seasonal variation, particularly affecting Medical and dental and Nursing staff groups as newly qualified staff graduate and become available for recruitment at set times in the year. As such, comparisons are made with the same quarter in the previous year.
• Staff recorded as doctors in training, dentists in training, or pre-registration pharmacists, are not included.
• The data collection methodology has not been applied consistently across all NHS organisations.
• Some organisations have reported a very low number (or a negative number) of vacancies across some staff groups, for some points in time; the number of vacancies reported is potentially under-estimated. Cwm Taf Morgannwg and Cardiff and Vale have implemented the agreed data collection method but both organisations reporting a very low number (or a negative number) of vacancies across some staff groups, for some points in time. The number of vacancies reported in these two health boards is potentially under-estimated.

Statistics are published as soon as possible after the relevant time period. There is typically a three-month lag between the reference period of the latest statistics and publication. Statistics are presented on a quarterly basis from the start of a calendar year onwards.

All outputs adhere to the Code of Practice by pre-announcing the date of publication through the upcoming calendar. Furthermore, should the need arise to postpone an output this would follow our revisions, errors and postponements arrangements.

Geographical comparability

Wales data is not directly comparable with data from other UK nations due to various factors, detailed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (UK NHS direct employment statistics comparability (ONS)).

Comparability over time

The data collection methodology has not been applied consistently across all NHS organisations, staff recruitment is likely to have seasonal variation, and throughout the year various coding changes have been implemented. Whilst at a high level the data are considered robust, some more detailed breakdowns clearly show inconsistencies in the data between health boards and between years.

The statistics are published in an accessible, orderly, pre-announced manner on the Welsh Government website at 9.30am on the day of publication. Outputs are publicised on X and are available to download for free.

Plain English is used in our outputs as much as possible and they adhere to the Welsh Government’s accessibility policy.

All our webpage headlines are published in Welsh and English.

Online databases

More detailed data is available at the same time on the StatsWales website and this can be manipulated online or downloaded into spreadsheets for use offline.

Once validated, data is published in line with statement on confidentiality and data access each quarter.