Pharmacists continue to be the most popular role employed through the additional roles reimbursement scheme, latest monthly primary care workforce figures indicate.
The NHS Digital data reports from the National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) submissions to give a picture of ARRS primary care network (PCN) staff across England.
And its latest data set released this month showed pharmacists were once again the most employed role, with an extra 33 full-time-equivalent (FTE) pharmacists employed in December 2024.
According to the NWRS monthly figures, there are now 5,494 FTE pharmacists and 375 FTE advanced pharmacist practitioners working in PCNs in England. There were also 1,977 FTE pharmacy technicians employed.
This represents a slight increase from the number of pharmacist and pharmacy technicians roles in PCNs in December 2023, when there were 5,107 FTE pharmacists and 1,813 FTE pharmacy technicians.
While this latest data set shows the practice pharmacist workforce in England has increased by 7.5% between December 2023 and December 2024, it had grown by 32% in the year before.
This comes after earlier figures suggested that recruitment of practice pharmacist and other ARRS roles was slowing and as GP practice sound the alarm over struggling to recruit pharmacists.
The latest data report also showed that FTE advanced pharmacist practitioner numbers dropped slightly - from 381 in December 2023 to 375 in December 2024. Though this was still higher than the 330 in PCNs in 2022.
| ARRS role | FTE roles employed by PCNs in December 2024 | Change from previous quarter |
| Pharmacists | 5,494 | Up |
| Care Coordinators | 4,813 | Up |
| Social Prescribing Link Workers (Non-Mental Health Practitioners) |
2,777 | Up |
| Pharmacy Technicians | 1,977 | Up |
| Physiotherapists | 1,645 | Up |
| General Practice Assistants | 1,269 | Up |
| Paramedics | 1,176 | Down |
| Physician Associates | 1,147 | Down |
| Health and Wellbeing Coaches | 1,043 | Up |
| Nursing Associates | 511 | Up |
| Advanced Nurse Practitioners * some PCNs may be reporting Enhanced Nurse Practitioners under this role, as well as Advanced Clinical Practitioner Nurses, as neither is separately captured within NWRS, though both are ARRS roles. |
501 | Up |
| Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners (Mental Health Practitioners) | 459 | Down |
| Trainee Nursing Associates | 451 | Down |
| Advanced Pharmacist Practitioners | 375 | Down |
| Digital and Transformation Leads | 262 | Up |
| Advanced Paramedic Practitioners | 233 | Up |
| Therapists (Non-Mental Health Practitioners) | 202 | Same |
| Salaried GPs * Includes salaried GP workforce relating to PCN extended access DES and ARRS | 176 | Up |
| Dieticians | 129 | Down |
| Advanced Physiotherapist Practitioners | 100 | Same |
| Social Prescribing Link Workers (Mental Health Practitioners) | 96 | Same |
| Podiatrists | 47 | Same |
| Community Mental Health Nurses (Mental Health Practitioners) | 57 | Up |
| Therapists (Mental Health Practitioners) | 14 | Down |
| Advanced Occupational Therapist Practitioners (Non-Mental Health Practitioners)] | 12 | Same |
| Advanced Dietician Practitioners | 5 | Same |
| Advanced Podiatrist Practitioners | 3 | Same |
| Applied Psychologists – Clinical (Mental Health Practitioners) | 2 | Same |
| Trainee Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners (Mental Health Practitioners) | 2 | Up |
| Social Workers (Mental Health Practitioners) | 1 | Same |
| Peer Support Workers (Mental Health Practitioners) | 1 | Same |
| Trainee Clinical Associates in Psychology (Mental Health Practitioners) | 0 | Same |
| Advanced Occupational Therapist Practitioners (Mental Health Practitioners) | 0 | Same |
| Clinical Associates in Psychology (Mental Health Practitioners) | 0 | Same |
| Other - Roles under the 'Other' Direct Patient Care category may contain roles which PCNs can claim ARRS funding for, but are not yet reported on within this publication. | 407 | Down |
All figures are full-time equivalent.
*While all the above roles from the primary care network workforce statistics are reimbursable under ARRS, NHS England has not confirmed whether the FTE numbers have been claimed for under the scheme.
Our sister title Pulse PCN also reports on the quarterly primary care workforce figures, which alongside the self-reported NWRS submissions includes ARRS claims data, so may vary from the figures reported here.
A version of this article first appeared in our sister title Pulse PCN.
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