Report into peoples satisfaction of GP services

A combination of information emerging from their own ‘Service Watch’ questionnaires, discussion at the Healthier Communities Scrutiny Board and national sources has led Healthwatch Solihull to recognise some potential concern about access to and satisfaction with GP services. Since September 2013, about 50% of respondents to the ‘Service Watch’ survey have made reference to GP practices and of those about a third have expressed dissatisfaction. This has led our team to undertake desk research and, in particular, to pick up and undertake some detailed breakdown of local results from the national GP Patient Survey, an independent survey run by Ipsos MORI on behalf of NHS England.

This work has shown that, whilst satisfaction levels reflected by the survey are aligned with national norms, there appear to pockets of exceptionally high satisfaction mirrored by pockets of substantially lower satisfaction and that perceptions of access to GPs are lower than perceptions of experience at GP practices overall. Both of these areas of potential concern merit further, deeper study and Healthwatch Solihull have arranged to work with Healthwatch Birmingham to do further survey and analysis work covering both areas. Anecdotal evidence, potentially supported by the national study, suggests that at practices undertaking social prescribing approaches, or encouraging self-referral to social support agencies, satisfaction levels may be higher. This, too, will be examined further.