National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS)

The new NWRS system was launched in July 2021 in response to direct feedback from users, making it much easier to use than the previous system and reducing the burden for Practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs).

You can access the system via the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS) using the same login used to complete other data collections, such as the General Practice Annual Electronic Self-Declaration, also known as eDEC. For help, please go to the support page.

Understanding staff capacity in the health service is more important than ever before. It is this information that shapes how investment, training, and resource is directed across the primary care workforce ensuring the right support goes to the right place at the right time. So, it is critical that the information you submit to us about your staff is accurate and complete.

Provision of workforce data is also a contractual requirement for practices and primary care networks as it is crucial for understanding changing capacity across the primary care workforce. 

Here’s a short video showing why your primary care data is so important for the provision of patient care:

A suite of resources including how-to videos, frequently asked questions and downloadable guidance’ is available on our support page.

These cover the full user journey from registering with NWRS through to entering and updating your records and includes information on dealing with organisational changes’.

We also provide information for stakeholder organisations.

The NWRS dashboard has been designed to support improvements to the quality and completeness of workforce information collected from GP practices and primary care networks using the National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS).

The dashboard also enables stakeholders to monitor progress at a local and regional level.

Extractions of GP practice and PCN data take place monthly. 

The regular submission of data enables NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to have more frequent, accurate, complete and timely information to aid in their decision-making and workforce planning processes, without increasing the burden to practices and primary care networks.

Once information has been entered it remains on the system data only requires amending if staff details change, or when absences or vacancies have occurred.

Details of your workforce are collected by NHS Digital through the NWRS. The information you provide is then used to monitor government targets, develop policy and inform workforce planning.

The detail contained in the data is used at both national and local level for workforce planning purposes. It is the only national collection of the workforce in General Practices and Primary Care Networks at individual staff level. This allows for staff to be uniquely identified and their whole contribution to NHS staffing accurately determined.

Learn more about how we use the workforce data you provide.

The NWRS is fully GDPR compliant and a summary of why and how we process your data, including your rights, can be found on the National Workforce Reporting System (NWRS) extranet data: GDPR information page.

NHS England provide run quarterly webinars for NWRS data providers (GP practices and Primary Care Networks). These include a demonstration of the NWRS system and Data Quality Dashboard, a walkthrough of our primary care workforce publications, and offer an opportunity to ask questions.

The next webinar is scheduled for Tuesday 16 January, from 10.30am-12.00pm. Please contact your ICB or regional lead for the webinar joining link. Alternatively, you can email the Primary Care Workforce Team, quoting NWRS Webinar in the subject field. 

If you require additional support or would benefit from a Teams meeting with an NWRS colleague, please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected].

If you require a support session, please indicate this in your email subject line, for example, “NWRS support call request”. Please specify whether you would like an NWRS demo or need specific help with your own data.