Department of Health

Website of the Department of Health

Please note that this website has a UK government access keys system.

You are here:

National survey of NHS patients: general practice 1998

  • Published date:
    20 October 1999

The full results of the National Survey of NHS Patients are published today. The survey is the first in an annual programme to obtain systematic information on patients' experience of the NHS.

The GP Survey was administered as a self-completion questionnaire posted to 100,000 people between October and December 1998. A sample of 1,000 people was randomly selected from the Electoral Registers in each of the 100 Health Authorities in England, and a questionnaire was posted to each of these 100,000 people. The results are based on over 60,000 completed questionnaires.

The GP survey was designed to help assess the quality of General Practice through the patient's eyes. It covered a wide range of issues including access and waiting times, communication with patients, patients' views of GPs' knowledge, out-of-hours care, courtesy, and the availability and helpfulness of other surgery staff and services including practice nurses and receptionists.

Headline results released in April are confirmed:

  • 81% of respondents had seen their GP in the last year. Of these people, most had found services to be satisfactory, though people aged under 45 tended to be less satisfied. Most patients considered that GPs had taken their opinions seriously, were understandable, and the majority felt well informed about their condition or treatment. 79% considered that their NHS GP knew what treatment was best and 84% considered that the GP made, in their opinion, the right diagnosis most, if not all of the time.
  • Half of all respondents (52%) had consulted the practice nurse in the previous year. Nearly all of these respondents felt that the nurse took appropriate action and treated them with courtesy and respect. 90% considered the nurse knew enough about their condition and 89% that (s)he answered their questions.
  • As regards access to their NHS GP, 4 out of 5 patients thought their appointment with their GP was as soon as necessary, although 19% of patients considered that their appointment with their GP should have been sooner and 25% had to wait 4 or more days.

New information in the full report includes variations by social class, ethnic group, employment status and region. Health Authority level data are also being made available on the internet.

  • Certain groups of patients appeared to be less satisfied than others. Patients with less favourable views included younger people (the under 45s), those living in the London region, and those from ethnic minority groups.
  • People in paid work or in full-time education were the least satisfied with arrangements for accessing their surgery.
  • In general, there were very few differences in views between patients from different social classes.

In more detail the findings are:

Contacting the surgery:

  • 15% of respondents (and 20% of people in work) said that they put off going to their GP at least once in the last 12 months because of inconvenient surgery hours. The proportion varied by Health Authority from 10% to 23%, and the higher proportion was mainly in and around London Health Authorities. 19% of patients said that the receptionist had made it difficult to talk to their GP. 37% of respondents said that they could not always, or even on most occasions, get through to the surgery on the telephone at the first attempt. This proportion varied by Health Authority from 27% to 54%.

Waiting times for an appointment and at the surgery:

  • 29% of respondents said that they usually had to wait 2-3 days to get an appointment with the GP of their choice, and a further 25% had to wait four or more days. One in five patients said their last GP appointment should have been sooner than it was. There was some variation between Health Authorities with the proportion having to wait 4 days or more to see a GP of their own choice ranging from 8 to 45%.
  • 17% of patients were seen within 5 minutes of arriving at the surgery; 59% were seen within 15 minutes and 84% within half an hour. 13% had to wait 30 minutes or more at their last visit to the surgery. Waiting times varied between Health Authorities, and they were generally longer in the London region.

Choice of GP:

  • 55% of women patients thought it important to be able to see a GP of their own sex; 37% thought it important to be able to see a GP of their own ethnic group. The proportion of men expressing these preferences was lower. Young people were more likely than older people to prefer to see a GP of their own sex; older people were more likely than younger people to prefer to see a GP of their own ethnic group. Generally these preferences were on similar levels among all ethnic groups, except that Bangladeshi respondents - for a high proportion of whom English was not their main language - were more likely than others to want to see a GP of their own ethnic group.
  • 12% of those who thought it was important were unable to see a GP of their own sex when they wanted. The proportion unable to see a GP of their preferred ethnic group was 7%. Londoners were more likely to be unable to see a GP of their preferred ethnic group (15%).
  • For 22% of respondents registered at a group practice there was at least one doctor at their GP's practice whom they were not happy to consult.

Length of consultation:

  • The majority (87%) of patients were satisfied with the length of time that the GP spent with them on their last consultation. 12% said that the GP should have spent longer. Doctors tended to spend longer with older patients, so that younger patients - particularly younger women - were more likely to be unhappy about the length of consultation.

Patient-GP communication:

  • Respondents were asked a number of questions about communicating with their GP. The majority said that their GP was very or fairly easy to understand (94%), and that all or most of the time they were given enough information about their treatment (87%), were listened to (84%), and had their opinions taken seriously (78%).
  • Younger people and ethnic minority respondents were less likely to say their GP always did these things. Asian respondents (particularly those of Bangladeshi or Chinese origin) were half as likely as white respondents to say that their GP gave enough information, listened and took their opinions seriously. Responses also varied by Health Authority. For example the proportion who said their GP always or mostly gave them enough information ranged from 75% to 93%.

Views of GP's knowledge and skills:

  • Around 80% of patients thought that their GP always or mostly made the right diagnosis, and knew what was best for them, and that (s)he knew enough and took appropriate action on their last visit. Younger people, people from the non-manual social classes and people from ethnic minority groups were less likely than others to have favourable views.

Out-of-hours care:

  • 14% of those registered with a GP had made an out-of-hours telephone call, either to their GP surgery or to a central out-of-hours number, within the past 12 months. Of these 43% received a visit from a doctor (either their own or a locum). The older the caller the more likely (s)he was to receive a visit. Londoners in general were less likely than those in other regions to have received a home visit in response to an out-of-hours call. Half of those who received a visit had to wait less than an hour; 22% reported waiting two hours or more. Callers in London waited longer than others.
  • 20% of out-of-hours callers were given advice over the telephone; 16% were asked to visit their surgery when it opened; 14% were asked to go to their nearest A & E. These patients were less likely than others to be satisfied with the response to their out-of-hours call.

Hospital referrals:

  • Over a third (35%) of respondents had been referred by their GP to a hospital specialist during the last twelve months. Nine in ten of those felt that they had been referred at the right time.
  • One in five of referred patients had to wait 3 months or more before they saw the hospital specialist.
  • 36% of referred patients said that their condition had worsened and that they were in pain during the waiting period. The proportion increased according to the length of the waiting time. 25% of those waiting six months or more said they were in a lot of pain.

Complaints:

  • 11% of respondents said that they had felt like making a complaint at least once in the past 12 months but had not actually done so. Only in 1% of cases was a complaint made. Half of the respondents who made a complaint reported that the problem had already been satisfactorily resolved; for 10% it was too early to say; and in 40% of cases the matter had not been resolved to the patient's satisfaction.

Notes to editor

  1. A 20 page postal questionnaire was sent in October 1998 to 100,000 adults in England. A sample of 1,000 people was randomly selected from the electoral registers in each of the 100 Health Authorities in England. A response rate of 64.5% was achieved after discounting ineligible addresses. The results are based on 61,426 completed questionnaires. Eighty-one percent (c 50,000) of respondents had seen a GP in the last 12 months.
  2. The survey was carried out by a consortium of independent research organisations - the National Centre for Social Research (formerly SCPR), Picker Europe and the Imperial College School of Science, Technology and Medicine.
  3. A summary booklet is available by faxing 01623 724524; writing to: Department of Health, PO Box 777, London SE1 6XH or by E-mail from doh@prologistics.co.uk. Copies of the full report on the Survey (price £10) are available from the same address: National surveys of NHS Patients: general practice 1998 Editors: Airey, C, Erens, B. Published by the NHS Executive London 1999
  4. The survey results at Health Authority level are available on the Internet at http://193.32.28.83/public/nhssurvey.htm
  5. In April and May 1999, the Department of Health ran two separate surveys to provide supplementary information about access to GPs and clinic services out-of-office hours. The results of these surveys are outlined in a separate statistical press release published today.
  • Contact:
    Press officer
  • Address:
    Media Centre, Department of Health
    Richmond House, 79 Whitehall
    London
    SW1A 2NL
  • Phone:
    Media Centre
    020 7210 5221

Additional links

Travelling?

Access keys