NATIONAL PRIMARY CARE WORKFORCE SURVEY ADVISORY GROUP REPORT ON 2013 SURVEY - WEB ONLY

National Primary Care Workforce Survey Advisory Group

24. While collation and checking of submitted forms was underway, the Scottish Government set up a stakeholder group to assist ISD Scotland with its analysis of the Survey results. The role of the National Primary Care Workforce Survey Advisory Group (WSAG) was to help assure the quality and integrity of the approach taken in respect of handling the results and help ensure that the conclusions detailed in the final report were valid and robust (in respect of interpretation of data and appropriateness of assumptions made).

Remit

25. The Group had the following remit:

• To provide expert advice to ISD Scotland in respect of the handling and interpretation of the 2013 Survey data; and to ensure that the methodological approaches taken to analysis, reporting and interpreting of the data received, are appropriate in the wider context.
• To assist SG officials, as necessary or appropriate, in the provision of advice to Scottish Ministers in respect of the lessons learned from administration, collation and analysis of the 2013 Survey data; recommendations for future repeat or similar surveys; and/or complementary work to examine in more detail the changing nature of the primary care workforce in Scotland.

Membership

26. Membership consisted of representatives from:

• Scottish General Practitioners Committee
• National Out of Hours Operations Group
• Practice Managers
• Scottish Association of Medical Directors
• Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland
• Royal College of Nursing Scotland
• Scottish Practice Nurses Association
• NHS 24
• NHS Education for Scotland
• Glasgow Local Medical Committee
• Scottish Government
• ISD Scotland

27. A total of 7 meetings were held over the period May to September inclusive.

Official Statistics

28. A further development since the 2009 Survey was the decision to publish the 2013 results as Official Statistics. This had implications for ISD Scotland and for members of the Advisory Group.

29. Decisions in respect of the data which was shared with Advisory Group members rested with ISD Scotland and the Group's Terms of Reference outlined requirements in respect of the handling of this material. In summary, data relating to Survey results was not permitted to be disseminated to anyone outwith the membership of the Group or acting on behalf of a member, such as a substitute attending an Advisory Group meeting. Anyone acting on behalf of a member was not given access to material until they confirmed that they had read and accepted the Group's Terms of Reference, including those relating to the handling of information.

30. Arrangements for the publication of the 2013 Survey finalised results were the responsibility of ISD Scotland, in liaison with the Scottish Government.

31. The Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008 (2008/399) provides for rules and principles relating to the granting of pre-release access to official statistics which are wholly Scottish devolved statistics. Membership of the Group did not guarantee access to the finalised report in advance of publication. Responsibility for deciding which individuals/agencies would have pre-release access to the finalised results in respect of the 2013 Survey rested with ISD Scotland.

Further round of Survey forms

32. At its first meeting, the Advisory Group agreed that there could be value in introducing a further round of the In Hours element of the 2013 Survey, targeting those areas with the poorest response rate in an attempt to ensure as representative participation across Scotland, as possible.

33. To that end, the Chair of the Group approached the SGPC to discuss the viability, from a resources point of view, of a further targeted round of the In Hours Survey form. The SGPC were very supportive of this proposal and a pool of practices in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde were identified by ISD Scotland, on the basis of their overall list sizes (that is, to achieve a representative mix of small, medium and large practices in each area).

34. These practices were approached by Glasgow LMC during June, resulting in a further 8 Survey forms being completed and submitted. Having been carefully selected to increase the number and spread of GP practices that had previously responded to the Survey from within the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, these additional responses added value to the Survey results for Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the CHP areas within it. In addition, these later responses took the overall response rate up to 63.9%.

Experimental Report

35. It had originally been hoped that, in addition to the results of the In Hours Survey form, the majority of the data collected from the OOH Survey form would be suitable for inclusion in the Official Statistics report in due course. However, as collation of the OOH data progressed, it became apparent that only the workforce data (sections 4 and 5 of the Survey form, plus some explanatory notes derived from section 6) would be robust enough to be included in the 2013 Official Statistics Report.

36. There was some discussion about the value of the remaining OOH data and following some further discussions with ISD Scotland to better understand this data (some of which was incomplete and, in other cases, was inconsistent across the Boards) it was agreed that an experimental report would be produced for sharing with stakeholders following publication of the Official Statistics report.