General practice - demographics data visualisation
Up to 31 March 2025

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 March 2025.

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 March 2025, there were 6,034,567 people registered in Scotland.
• The number of registrations in Scotland has increased by 1.8% over the past two years.

A line graph showing the increase in people registered to a GP practice in Scotland each quarter. The graph starts at 5,915,136 people at December 2022 and increases steadily each quarter to 6,034,567 people at March 2025.

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People registered with a GP Practice in Scotland

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). This is due to list size inflation caused by factors such as people moving abroad after having registered with a GP in Scotland, overseas visitors registering with GPs in Scotland or students moving from Scotland during or after studies and not registering elsewhere. For more information please see Appendix 1 of the latest GP Practice List Sizes publication.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a measure of deprivation in Scotland produced by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government periodically recalculates the index for all areas of Scotland and over time. From Quarter 2 of 2024, SIMD deciles in this publication are based on 2020 SIMD whereas previously this was based on 2012 SIMD. This change ensures the publication uses the most current metrics available. However, as a result, direct comparison of data from before and after this date is not advised.

For further information on SIMD please visit the Scottish Governments webpage on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Further information

For practice list sizes please see the annual GP Practice List Sizes publication.

Lists of all GPs and practices in Scotland are updated quarterly on the General Practice web page.

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

The next release of this publication will be August 2025