Pharmacists have seen the largest increase in additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) hires, according to the latest monthly figures.
The small increase saw 12 more pharmacists employed by PCNs since June, bringing the total number of pharmacists to 5,472 (FTE) according to these figures. This is followed by pharmacy technicians, which had an increase of 11 roles.
Pharmacists remain the most popular role hired under the scheme followed by care coordinators with 4,970 hired and social prescribing link workers with 2,715 hired.
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The monthly primary care workforce figures from July, report on the National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) submissions to give a picture of additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) PCN staff across England.
There has been a slight drop in the number of physician associates (PAs) and social prescribers working in PCNs across England in July, according to the latest monthly figures.
Both roles saw a drop of 16 across the month, which means there are now 1,099 full-time equivalent (FTE) PAs and 2,715 (FTE) social prescribers working across PCNs.
PAs were the subject of the Leng review, published in July, and accepted in full by the Government.
It was sparked following patient safety concerns and chaired by Professor Gillian Leng, former chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
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It found that PAs should be renamed ‘assistants’, should not see undifferentiated patients outside of clearly determined protocols, and that they should have at least two years’ training in secondary care before being allowed to practise in primary care.
There has been a decline in PAs working in PCNs across England since August 2024.
In separate figures based on ARRS claims data rather than the NWRS, NHS England also revealed that there are now 2,097 (headcount) GPs employed through the ARRS scheme as of 31 July 2025.
The FTE figure for May was 1,004 GPs, and for June, 877. However, NHS England said the figures for GPs hired through ARRS are subject to lag due to the short time period between the month end and the date of data extraction, meaning the figures are provisional and could change in the future.
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Last month new figures revealed that more than £83m of ARRS funding was unspent in 2024/25.
A version of this story was first published on our sister title Pulse PCN.
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