General Practitioners: Women
(asked on 24th March 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the change in the proportion of NHS GP's that are female between 2015 and 2025.
This question was answered on 13th April 2026
The following table shows the proportion of female full-time equivalent (FTE) general practitioners (GPs) between September 2015 and September 2025, broken down by GP role:
GP type | September 2015 (%) | September 2025 (%) | Change (%) |
All doctors in GPs | 46.1 | 52.8 | 6.7 |
GP partners | 36.9 | 42.4 | 5.5 |
Salaried GPs | 65.9 | 65.7 | -0.2 |
GPs in training grades | 60.2 | 52.8 | -7.5 |
GP retainers | 89.8 | 76.3 | -13.4 |
GP regular locums | 33.6 | 46.2 | 12.5 |
Notes:
- data includes estimates for practices that did not provide fully valid staff records;
- data does not include doctors employed by primary care networks;
- FTE refers to the proportion of full time contracted hours that the post holder is contracted to work. One would indicate they work a full set of hours, 37.5 hours, and 0.5 that they worked half time. For GPs in training grade contracts, one FTE equals 40 hours, and in this table these FTEs have been converted to the standard Workforce Minimum Data Set measure of one FTE being equal to 37.5 hours for consistency; and
- figures shown do not include staff working in prisons, army bases, educational establishments, specialist care centres, including drug rehabilitation centres, walk-in centres, and other alternative settings outside of traditional practice, such as urgent treatment centres and minor injury units.