Fall in patient satisfaction in GP Patient Survey reflects an over-stretched service

The latest GP Patient Survey shows a fall in patient satisfaction with 72.4% of those surveyed reporting a good overall experience of their GP practice compared to 83.0% in 2021.

It also found that only half of those surveyed (56%) reported a good overall experience of making an appointment (70.6% in 2021, 65.5% in 2020) with similar numbers saying they found it easy to make an appointment either by phone or online.

The GP Patient Survey (GPPS) is an England-wide survey of patients aged over 16 years and provides GP practice-level data about patients’ experiences of general practice.

Ipsos administers the survey on behalf of NHS England and 2,471,497 questionnaires were sent out nationally, and 719,137 were returned completed between 10 January and 11 April 2022. This represents a response rate of 29.1%.

The Royal College of GPs said the findings reflect an over-stretched service, with GPs and their teams doing their best for patients under intense workload and workforce pressures.

Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “It’s never easy to hear patients reporting unsatisfactory experiences of receiving general practice care, or that they are having difficulties accessing our services. Ultimately, GPs, our teams and patients want the same thing – access to high quality and timely care – and we share patients’ frustrations when this can’t be delivered. This is why we are calling on the Government to introduce a bold new plan for general practice.

“Given these pressures, it’s remarkable and a testament to hardworking GP teams that over 90% of patients surveyed felt that their needs were met during their consultation, and 93% continue to have confidence and trust in the healthcare professional they saw.”

He added that the findings must not be used as an opportunity to denigrate already-demoralised hardworking GPs and teams, but a wake-up call to government and policy makers to sufficiently support GPs to deliver safe, timely, and personalised care to all patients.

GP shortages are compromising patient safety

The British Medical Association agreed that the fall in patient satisfaction with making an appointment is a stark reflection of the capacity shortfall that general practice is facing.

Dr Farah Jameel, BMA England GP committee chair, said: “The general practice appointment bookings reached record highs over the winter of 2021, but we still lack enough doctors to safely meet demand. There has been a failure of successive governments to recruit enough GPs, and crucially retain those we’ve already got, leading to those staff that remain being forced to plug the gaps in the service.

“Despite this, more than 70% of the public reported a good overall experience of their GP practice, which is testament to how hard our teams are working. In fact, latest appointment figures show that GPs delivered an estimated 28.3m appointments in May, including Covid vaccinations. This is even more impressive when we consider that, also for May, the total NHS waiting list in England stood at 6.61 million €“ the highest ever recorded and over 2.8million the number waiting in May 2020.

“This situation will only improve if the government provides the investment and support that is needed to grow the general practice workforce and improve access to services. The Government should provide immediate support to GPs to make improvements to their booking systems and invest in practice technology and premises. But to really turn this situation around, we urgently need the government to recognise how GP shortages are compromising patient safety and provide a credible workforce plan to increase the number of staff across the health service.”