Weighted Workforce
Consultant workforce compared with weighted
capitation
The healthcare weighted capitation of an area
– in this case each Strategic Health Authority (SHA) – reflects the
healthcare needs of the population in that area. This need is
calculated according to a number of factors including the
population size, the age of the population and deprivation.
Weighted capitation can be used to plan and
allocate resources to different areas. For example, if
England has a total of 200 full time equivalent (FTE) radiology
consultants, an SHA with a weighted capitation of 10 per cent would
be expected to have 20 FTE radiology consultants. If the SHA
actually had 25 FTE radiology consultants then it would be over
capitated by +5 consultants, or if the SHA had 15 FTE radiology
consultants it would be have a capitated value of -5.
A comparison of the SHA workforce in a
specialty against the SHA weighted capitation allows us to
judge:
- whether or not to consider a future expansion
or reduction of the consultant workforce in that SHA
- how difficult or easy it may be to attract
consultants to work in that region.
Therefore in our example above, if there were
actually only 15 FTE radiology consultants in that area, we could
look for growth in the number of radiology consultants in that
region or we could assume that the region has difficulty in
attracting radiology consultants to work there.
This information is currently only available
for England.