People happy with quality of care but have difficulty getting appointment, survey finds

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Patients are finding it increasingly difficult to get an appointment with a GP, to see their own family doctor and to get through to their surgery on the phone, an NHS survey shows.

People needing treatment are increasingly dissatisfied with the difficulties they encounter accessing GP care, an analysis of the experience of 770,000 patients shows.

NHS England’s annual GP Patient Survey found:

• Those whose experience of making an appointment was “good” has fallen sharply from 79.3% in 2012 to 67.4% this year.

• The proportion of patients who rate their overall experience of their GP practice as “good” remains high (82.9%) but has fallen by 5.5 points from 88.4% in 2012.

• Forty-eight percent of patients get to see their preferred GP almost always or a lot of the time, down from 50.2% last year.

• The percentage satisfied with appointment times offered fell 1.2 points over the last year to 64.7%.

• The proportion of patients who can get through to their surgery on the phone has also dropped over the last seven years, from 80.3% to 68.3%.

“Today’s 2019 GP Patient Survey shows that once people are able to get into their local surgery their experience remains overwhelmingly positive, but getting through the door is a significant problem,” said Dan Wellings, an expert in patient experience at the King’s Fund health charity.

Dr Richard Vautrey, the chair of the British Medical Association’s GPs committee, said: “We recognise that patients are often waiting too long for appointments and this is equally frustrating for GPs and their teams.”

The number of full-time GPs in England fell from 29,138 in March 2018 to 28,697 – a loss of 441 family doctors – Vautrey added. That is despite the government’s pledge in 2015 to increase the GP workforce by 5,000 by 2020.

“The continued downward trend of overall satisfaction rates suggests that growing demand, a shortfall of GPs and financial constraints are increasingly taking their toll on ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the NHS,” said Dr Becks Fisher, a GP and senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation thinktank.

GP surgeries in England provide more than 300m appointments a year with a family doctor, nurse or other health professional. NHS bosses plan to tackle the lack of GPs by hiring 20,000 extra staff to work in surgeries such as physiotherapists, pharmacists and mental health therapists, to ease the pressure on GPs and reduce delays.

The GP Patient Survey also includes more positive findings. Growing but still small numbers of patients are booking appointments online (14.9%), ordering a repeat prescription online (16.2%) or accessing their own medical records online (4.3%).

However, NHS England stressed that the inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds in the survey for the first time last year may have influenced some of the results.

The survey results come as growing numbers of GP surgeries are closing because of the lack of family doctors.

In Hull, one of five surgeries run by the Modality Partnership will shut next month because of what local NHS chiefs called “immediate and serious workforce pressures”.

Modality is closing the Faith House practice because its five surgeries have suffered a “significant reduction” in the number of GPs they have after several partners retired, one resigned and others cut their hours. Each of its remaining 15.8 GPs now has to look after 3,850 patients – double the English average.

In Shrewsbury, 3,700 patients are looking for a new surgery to provide their care because the Whitehall medical practice is closing in September. Shropshire NHS clinical commissioning group wanted to keep the surgery open but received no bids to do so.

Dr Nikita Kanani, NHS England’s director of primary care, said: “Family doctors in England see nearly 1 million people every day, and this survey shows they appreciate the fantastic job they do alongside other practice staff such as nurses and pharmacists.”