Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

List of Registered Medical Practitioners - statistics

Registration statistics

This page contains statistical information about doctors on the List of Registered Medical Practitioners (LRMP) the General Practitioners (GP) Register and the Specialist Register. The statistics are updated on a monthly basis and were last updated on 25 January 2012.

The LRMP contains details of doctors registered to practise medicine in the United Kingdom. The GPR contains a list of doctors who are registered to practise as General Practitioners in the United Kingdom. The Specialist Register is a register of doctors who are eligible to work as substantive, fixed term or honorary consultants in the health service in the UK. To work as a GP or consultant doctors must be registered on the GP/Specialist Register as well as the LRMP. Doctors must also have a licence to practise in order to perform the duties of a doctor and treat patients. More information about registration and licensing can be found within The Medical Register and Licensing sections of the website.

If you have any suggestions about other statistical information you would like to be included on this page, please contact foi@gmc-uk.org or call 0161 923 6365. For more details about accessing information, please go to the Accessing Information section of the website.

Below is a list of all the tables and charts available. These separated into the current statistics and those covering the period of 2001 to 2010.

Current Statistics

Registration status on the LRMP

Registration status	No. of doctors	%	No. of doctors licensed	%
Full registration	198,898	80.85%	186,909	80.29%
Full registration in an Approved Practice Setting*	39,100	15.89%	37,962	16.31%
Provisional registration	7,971	3.24%	7,883	3.39%
Temporary full registration for special purpose registrations**	28	0.01%	28	0.01%
Visiting EEA registration***	10	0.00%	10	0.00%
Total doctors registered on LRMP	246,007	100.00%	232,792	100.00%

*Approved practice settings (APS) are organisations approved by the GMC as suitable for doctors who are new to full registration, or returning to the medical register after a prolonged absence.

**Special purpose registration allows doctors to be registered for a temporary period in order to treat non-UK nationals within the UK. Doctors travelling to the UK in order to treat 2012 Olympic and Paralympic athletes will be required to have special purpose registration.

***Visiting EEA registration refers to doctors who are European Economic Area nationals wishing to work in the UK temporarily. They are registered through a fast track process and placed on the visiting EEA practitioners list.

Doctors on the GP and Specialist Registers

Register*	No. of doctors	%	No. of doctors licensed	%
Specialist Register	71,482	29.06%	68,215	29.30%
GP Register	61,138	24.85%	59,279	25.46%
Total no. of doctors on LRMP	246,007	100.00%	232,792	100.00%

*Please note that doctors can be registered on both the GP and Specialist Registers.

Doctors by gender for each register

	LRMP		Specialist Register		GP Register
Gender	No. of doctors	%	No. of doctors	%	No. of doctors	%
Man	141,343	57.5%	49,838	69.7%	32,533	53.2%
Woman	104,664	42.5%	21,644	30.3%	28,605	46.8%
Total	246,007	100.00%	71,482	100.00%	61,318	100.0%

Doctors by age group

Age group	No. of doctors	%
<= 25	10,075	4.10%
26 - 35	71,106	28.90%
36 - 45	68,539	27.86%
46 - 55	36,783	14.95%
56 - 65	16,533	6.72%
> 65	9,200	3.74%
No Birth Date	35,771	13.73%
Grand total	246,007	100.00%

Percentage of doctors per age group

Doctors by World Region of Primary Medical Qualification (PMQ)

The World Region of PMQ refers to the region in which a doctor gained their initial qualification and therefore does not necessarily reflect the nationality of the doctor.

PMQ World Region	No. of doctors	%	No. of GPs	%	No. of Specialists	%
EEA (excluding UK)	24,125	9.8%	3,888	6.4%	10,703	15.0%
International	66,726	27.1%	10,016	16.4%	16,672	23.3%
UK	155,156	63.1%	47,315	77.3%	44,178	61.7%
Total	246,007	100.00%	61,138	100.00%	71,482	100.00%

Doctors by World Region of PMQ

Top 20 countries of qualification

PMQ country	No. of doctors	%
United Kingdom	155,156	63.1%
India	25,602	10.4%
Pakistan	8,638	3.5%
South Africa	5,916	2.4%
Ireland	4,017	1.6%
Nigeria	3,793	1.5%
Germany	3,357	1.4%
Egypt	3,065	1.2%
Sri Lanka	2,388	1.0%
Iraq	2,307	0.9%
Italy	2,284	0.9%
Greece	2,205	0.9%
Australia	2,015	0.8%
Romania	1,933	0.8%
Poland	1,907	0.8%
Hungary	1,348	0.5%
Sudan	1,298	0.5%
Spain	1,185	0.5%
Czech Republic	986	0.4%
Bangladesh	841	0.3%
Total	230,241	93.6%

Top 20 specialties

Please note that doctors with more than one speciality will be counted within each speciality and therefore will have been counted more that once.

Specialty	Rank	No. of doctors	% of Specialist Register
Anaesthetics	1	9,653	11.76%
General (internal) medicine	2	8,444	10.29%
General psychiatry	3	5,286	6.44%
Paediatrics	4	4,832	5.89%
Clinical radiology	5	4,418	5.38%
General surgery	6	4,061	4.95%
Obstetrics and gynaecology	7	3,666	4.47%
Trauma and orthopaedic surgery	8	3,632	4.42%
Ophthalmology	9	2,106	2.57%
Histopathology	10	2,038	2.48%
Cardiology	11	1,810	2.21%
Public health medicine	12	1,483	1.81%
Respiratory medicine	13	1,461	1.78%
Geriatrics	14	1,426	1.74%
Child and adolescent psychiatry	15	1,337	1.63%
Haematology	16	1,320	1.61%
Old age psychiatry	17	1,319	1.61%
Endocrinology and diabetes mellitus	18	1,230	1.50%
Otolaryngology	19	1,206	1.47%
Urology	20	1,185	1.44%
Total	-	61,913	75.45%

Doctors by ethnicity level 1 and 2

Ethnic origin	Ethnic origin - Level 2	No. of doctors	%
Asian or Asian British	Any other Asian background	7,703	3.1%
	Bangladeshi	1,299	0.5%
	Indian	28,844	11.7%
	Pakistani	8,789	3.6%
	Unspecified	43	0.0%
Black or Black British	African	5,767	2.3%
	Any other Black background	537	0.2%
	Caribbean	518	0.2%
	Unspecified	22	0.0%
Mixed	Any other mixed background	1,549	0.7%
	Unspecified	1	0.0%
	White and Asian	1,138	0.5%
	White and Black African	753	0.3%
	White and Black Caribbean	203	0.1%
Not stated	Not stated	6,850	2.8%
Other Ethnic Groups	Any other ethnic group	5,120	2.1%
	Chinese	3,852	1.6%
	Unspecified	34	0.0%
Unspecified	Unspecified	54,293	22.1%
White	Any other White background	22,098	9.0%
	British	92,064	37.4%
	Irish	4,406	1.8%
	Unspecified	124	0.0%
Grand Total		246,007	100.0%