ALUMNOS GRADUADOS DE LOS PROGRAMAS DE DOCTORADO, 2003-

doctors, but most do not include hours of work. The General Medical Council (GMC) contains information on the number of doctors in the UK, both registered and licensed doctors in its medical register. Also, it compiles information about the number of doctors by specialty through the GP and the Specialist register. The Doctors and Dentists´ Review Body (DDRB) released yearly by the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) since 1991 has been collecting staff figures on headcount and full-time equivalent13 _{(FTE) for the whole UK. However, unlike}

the GMC, they only provide overall figures with no gender breakdown and, from our understanding, they do not include information of hours of work either. In England, the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), now call NHS Digital, is the main source for doctors’ headcount, in primary care and at

13 _{Full-time equivalents (FTE) is an arbitrary definition in the NHS. The relationship between full-time/part-}

time and FTE is as follows: a person working full-time equalises 1.0 FTE while for those working part-time there will be a pro-rata equivalence with 1 decimal. For example, 1 doctors working full-time will account for 1.0FTE. For GPs, full-time workers are those who work 37.5 hours per week (this is around 9 sessions considering that each GP session length is 4 hours and 10 minutes. Full-time hospital doctors work 40 hours per week (this requires making 10 Programme Activities (PAs) per week where each activity is estimated to require 4 hours). Part-time GPs, for example, working 20 hours each make 0.6FTE (20 hours/37.5) and part-time hospital doctors working the same number of hours make 0.5FTE. Hence, getting 1.0FTE will demand fewer hours for GPs than for hospital doctors.

hospital level, and includes the main demographics. The headcount of GPs grew by 19.9% (40,236 in 2013 including all GPs) and by 43% for hospital doctors, Consultants (41,220 in 2014), over the period 2003-2013 (HSCIC, 2014). Figure 2.1 conveys that the expansion of the headcount of doctors (DDRB, HSCIC) has grown faster than the growth in UK population (ONS).

Figure 2.1 DDRB, HSCIC and Population Change (Index)

The other sources that refer to hours of work are the British Medical Association (BMA) surveys, the UK Workload Surveys and the National GP Worklife Survey (NGPWS). The GP UK Workload Surveys are about GP practices. Two surveys have been carried out: the 1992/93 GP Workload Survey and the 2006/07 UK Workload Survey. It was not possible to access to the 1992/93 survey. The 2006/07 survey, which is accessible online14_{, contains information under the}

2004 contract and includes all workers in GP practices, not just GPs (HSCIC, 2007). Data for the 2006/07 survey comes from the Technical Steering Committee (TSC). This database includes 10,310 GP practices in the UK (data is from the four countries) and was the most comprehensive data by that time, including information about headcount, list size, contract types and GP

practices in rural areas. In 2006/07, sample size was 6,387 including GPs (1,213), other clinical staff (1,306), non-clinical staff (3,267), attached workers to practise (497) and GP locums (104). From an initial random sample of 4,000 practices, 834 practices accepted to participate and received a questionnaire. Response rate is below 40% (329 practices of 834). Data included in the survey refers to the proportion of GPs by contract arrangement, average number of GPs by practice size, practice composition, hours of work by practice type, staff group (salaried, partner, non-clinical, other clinical staff, GP locums or GP registrar) or geographical location. It also includes average number of sessions worked by type of GP and the distribution of hours of work, for example. There were 1,213 GPs who participated in the 2006/07 Survey of whom 67% were partner GPs, 19% salaried GPs, 7% GP Registrars and 8% GP locums. Overall, 70.8% of partner GPs, salaried GPs and GP Registrars are self- employed (amongst partner GPS 94.6% are contractors but this is only 2.8% for salaried GPs15_{). Full-time workers are defined as those working 8 or more}

sessions16_{, which corresponded to 35 hours per week or more. Partner GPs}

working full-time are more numerous (62%) than salaried GPs (22%). On average, a full-time (FT) partner GPs17 _{worked 44.4 hours per week (standard}

error 0.5) in this period, while all partner (full and part-time) GPs averaged 38.2 hours per week. Full-time salaried GPs worked 39.6 hours per week on average (standard error 1.2) and 23.8 hours per week overall (including full and part- time workers).

The series of the National GP Worklife Survey (NGPWS) have been running biennially since 1998 by the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre at the University of Manchester. To date, eight surveys (Sibbald et al, 2000, 2003; Whalley et al, 2005, 2006; Hann et al, 2009, 2011, 2013; Gibson et al, 2015) have been carried out with their resulting reports (see Appendix 2 for more detail). Between 1998 and the latest report released in 2015 hours of

15 _{See Table 8, pp. X, Annex A in the 2006/07 Survey.}

16 _{For a GP, a session lasts 4 hours and 10 minutes (GPC, 2014).}

17 _{A GP working full-time is that one working 8 or more sessions per week, where a session is defined as}

work of GPs decreased by 5 hours overall (from 46.4 average weekly hours in 1998 to 41.4). These series not only focus on hours of work but also provides information on job satisfaction, overall life satisfaction and intentions to quit.