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Practice based commissioning: GP practice survey wave 8

This is the eighth quarterly practice survey for 2009, covering a sample of practices from each primary care trust (PCT), conducted between June and August 2009. The aims of the survey are to get feedback from practices on their perception of the support offered by their PCT and on the clinical and financial engagement of practices with PBC. The survey is part of a group of indicators that will be assessed together to give a picture of PBC implementation.

Key findings

• Nine out of ten practices (92%) say they are part of a PBC group, as they did in Waves 6 and 7.
• Three quarters of practices (75%) say that they have now received an incentive scheme, as was also the case in Wave 7. 
• Just over three in five practices (63%) have submitted business cases for service redesign. This is consistent with the previous three waves.
• Nearly two thirds of practices (64%) now provide new services commissioned as a direct result of PBC. This result is 8 percentage points above the result for wave 5, but in line with the results of waves 7 (62%) and 6 (61%).
• There has also been an 8 percentage point rise in the proportion of practices that provides more services commissioned through PBC since Wave 5 (55% in Wave 8, 47% in Wave 5), although findings in Wave 7 (53%) and Wave 6 (51%) are more closely aligned to Wave 8.
• Almost two thirds (64%) of practices support PBC as a policy in Wave 8 (in line with the results of the previous five Waves).
• Half of practices now rate the quality of managerial support for PBC that practices receive from their PCT as good (50%). The net good rating is now +11 percentage points, the highest recorded. The net good rating was +8 in Wave 7, and +3 in Wave 6.
• 2,613 practices had been approached of which 1,698 replied - a response rate of 65%.

• Download national summary of results (PDF, 1030K)
• Download detailed survey results for primary care trusts (organised by SHA) (XLS, 2861K)
• Download pre-release access list (PDF, 10K)