Report on Findings from the Healthwatch Independent Survey on Access to GP Services

This Healthwatch Redcar and Cleveland report presents findings from a survey of 193 residents conducted between January and March 2015 to understand people's experiences of accessing GP appointments. The survey was undertaken in response to concerns raised through Healthwatch's engagement work and information service about difficulties booking appointments.

Overall, the report found that most respondents were satisfied with GP access, but a significant minority continued to experience problems. Two-thirds of respondents had visited or spoken to their GP within the previous three months, and most people booked appointments by telephone. 

The survey found that 67% of respondents felt it was easy to make an appointment, while one-third said it was not. Those who experienced difficulties consistently identified a number of recurring issues, including a lack of available GP appointments, problems getting through on the telephone, long periods spent on hold, limited access to appointments outside normal working hours, and frustration with systems that required an initial telephone consultation before an appointment could be offered.

Telephone access emerged as a particularly important concern. Many respondents reported repeatedly calling surgeries, facing engaged lines, long waits for calls to be answered, and finding that appointments had already been allocated by the time they reached reception staff. 

Most patients considered the appointments they received to be reasonably convenient. Around 83% said their appointment was either very or fairly convenient, although some respondents reported difficulty finding appointments that fitted around work commitments or personal schedules. 

The majority of respondents were able to see the clinician they wanted. Approximately 73% said they were able to make an appointment with their preferred GP or healthcare professional, although many comments suggested this depended heavily on availability and that patients often accepted whichever doctor was available when they needed urgent care. 

Access times were generally positive. Around 60% of respondents secured an appointment within two days, including 37% who obtained a same-day appointment. A further 27% were seen within three to seven days. However, some patients reported waits of several weeks, particularly when trying to see a specific GP.

When appointments were unavailable or inconvenient, most patients chose to accept an alternative appointment, arrange another appointment on a different day, or have a telephone consultation. Very few respondents reported using A&E as an alternative. 

Overall experiences of booking appointments were largely positive. Around 66% rated their experience as good, very good or excellent, while around 17% described it as fair and approximately 17% rated it as poor or very poor. 

Patients also reported variable waiting times once they arrived at surgeries. Most waited between six and twenty minutes before their consultation began, although around one in five respondents reported waits exceeding twenty minutes. 

Healthwatch concluded that although the majority of patients were satisfied with appointment access, the concerns raised by one-third of respondents warranted further attention. The report recommended that individual GP practices be reviewed to identify specific local issues, that practices explore ways of providing more convenient appointments for working people, and that greater effort be made to explain available appointment pathways and alternatives such as nurse practitioners and telephone consultations. Better public understanding of these options was seen as a way of improving access and reducing pressure on GP appointments.