GP Patient Experience Survey

The proportion of patients reporting a good overall experience of their GP practice decreased to its lowest level for five years, at 72.4%. This represented a 10.6 percentage point decrease compared with the 2021 survey (83.0%).

Just over half (52.7%) of patients said it was easy to get through to someone at their GP practice on the phone. This is lower than all previous years since the question was introduced in 2012, with the largest decrease within the last year (a decline of 14.9 percentage points from 67.6% in the 2021 survey).

Online contact with practices continues to increase, with 55.1% having used at least one online service – up 10.8 percentage points from the 2021 survey. The most common use was for repeat prescriptions (30.8%), however, the proportion of patients who reported accessing their medical records online more than doubled over the last year (16.5% compared with 7.1% in the 2021 survey). The increase in use of GP practice websites for information or to access services also increased, with 60% of patients now doing so.

The proportion of patients reporting a good overall experience of making an appointment decreased to its lowest level for five years (56.2%) – down 14.5 percentage points from the 2021 survey (70.6%). Satisfaction with appointment times also dropped to the lowest for five years (55.2%) – down 11.8 percentage points to 55.2% as against 67% in 2021.

Over half of survey respondents (55.4%) had avoided making a general practice appointment – up 13.1 percentage points from the 2021 survey (42.3%). The most common reason for patients avoiding making an appointment was because they found it too difficult (26.5%),

Patients with a disability reported a less positive overall experience, while patients living in the most deprived areas reported the least positive overall experience. Of patients who had a mental health need, the proportion who felt that these were recognised and/or understood decreased to the lowest level in five years (80.8%) – 5.2 percentage points lower than the 2021 survey (86.0%)