NHS Digital publishes workforce data as both headcount and FTE (full time equivalent).
Headcount refers to the number of individual doctors, while FTE is the proportion of full-time contracted hours that the post holder is contracted to work. 1 FTE would indicate they work a full set of hours, 0.5 that they worked half time.
As FTE reflects the true number of clinical hours the NHS has at its disposal, we usually find FTE to be more meaningful than headcount. However, we also use headcount where appropriate. This page uses both headcount and FTE and will be clearly stated throughout.
Full-time here is taken to be 37.5 hours in accordance with the standard definition of 1 FTE used by NHS Digital. This calculation is for illustrative purposes only, as we recognise that in practice some employed doctor contracts can be 40 hours.
