About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) shows the number of people registered to a GP practice, presented by practice, cluster, Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), NHS Board and Scotland. The most recent data presented are as at 31 December 2024.

It includes statistics on practice list sizes by age, sex and deprivation. Deprivation is based on an individual's area of residence, and is measured using the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). It also highlights changes in practice populations between quarters and the number of individuals registering in the last year as well as those registered with a GP that are resident in a care home.

Main points

  • At 31 December 2024, there were 6,027,878 people registered in Scotland.
  • The number of registrations in Scotland has increased by 1.9% over the past two years.
Image caption GP practice demographics for Scotland, 31 December 2024

The number of people registered in GP practices is larger than the Scottish population by approximately 500,000 as estimated by the National Records of Scotland (NRS). For more information please see Appendix 1 of the latest GP Practice List Sizes publication. PHS are investigating this further with the Scottish Government and NRS.

The Demographics data visualisation and the data behind this dashboard can be viewed at the Demographics Visualisation Home Page. The data is available to download from the data files section.

Further information

Data from this publication are available from the publication page on our website.

The next release of this publication will be May 2025

General enquiries

If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please contact Ryan Conway at phs.generalpractice@phs.scot.

Media enquiries

If you have a media enquiry relating to this publication, please contact the Communications and Engagement team.

Requesting other formats and reporting issues

If you require publications or documents in other formats, please email phs.otherformats@phs.scot.

To report any issues with a publication, please email phs.generalpublications@phs.scot.

Older versions of this publication

Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.

Last updated: 25 February 2025
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