From May, practice managers have another piece of admin to worry about – the Workforce Minimum Data Set (wMDS).

All practices in England have been asked to supply data on their staff, including recruitment, vacancies, absences and personal details, such as date of birth, National Insurance number and gender. The intention of this data collection drive is to allow the Department of Health, NHS England and Health Education England to understand the current NHS workforce and plan for future needs – with an eye very much on improving primary care.

What do PMs have to do?

The good news is that the data collection replaces the annual GP census. Instead, practices have been asked to submit data through the primary care web tool every six months, with the first data submission due by the end of May 2015. Access to the tool can be found at www.primarycare.nhs.uk.

Unfortunately for practice managers, the first submission is likely to be relatively time-consuming and the HSCIC is encouraging work to start on collating the data as soon as possible. It was originally planned for data to be extracted from Exeter, which could then simply be verified by practices but, after plenty of trials, it now appears that much of the required data will need to be entered manually.

A Department of Health spokesperson told Practice Index: “We have been working hard to pre-populate the Primary Care Web Tool with as much information as possible. Numerous pilots and trials have taken place to ensure this happens and assist practices. However, we appreciate that there will still be gaps that need filling in.”

Each subsequent six month submission should be less time-consuming as most of it will be fact checking.

What info are they asking for?

Lots! Everything from what employees cost and the duties they perform through to continual professional development and staff demographics are required. Full details of the information required can be found on the specification overview at www.hscic.gov.uk/wMDS.

There’s no escaping this either – practices are legally obliged to provide the data according to the General Practitioners Committee (GPC).

However…

Before you rush to fill in your data, it’s worth remembering that the GPC remains concerned that the dataset is excessive and will create an additional, unnecessary burden for practices at a time when they are already under severe workload pressure. As such, concerns were raised again with NHS England during January. The GPC is also responding to the Privacy Impact Assessment consultation for the dataset which closes on 20 February 2015, and would recommend that LMCs and practices also consider responding.

The GPC comments: “Our interim advice is that practices should continue to arrange access to the primary care web tool module, as per the advice in the December HSCIC email (Appendix 1). We would recommend that practices then proceed with the data preparation and submission.”

Next steps…

Like it or not, wMDS is here to stay, so the obvious next step for practice managers is – if it hasn’t already been done – to inform staff and let them know what information is required. It might also be worth assessing data storage methods within the practice as there’s a legal obligation to store data securely. That’s a topic we’ll cover very soon on the Practice Index blog.

What do you think about wMDS? Is it really needed or just yet more unnecessary paperwork? Comment below or take it to the forum.