GP Access Survey Report, Plymouth

In December 2016 Healthwatch Plymouth became aware of comments on social media regarding difficulties contacting GP surgeries by telephone. They launched a survey to ascertain how well the public perceived the surgeries by asking five main questions.

The survey was conducted at various public places from December 2016 to March 2017. 282 responses were received, 274 from the Plymouth area and 8 from further afield.

In addition to the main questions details were also obtained of the GP surgery that the respondent was registered with and any further comments they would like to make.

Factors to be considered when assessing the results of the survey are the number of replies received overall and for a particular surgery, the number of people registered at each surgery and whether the surgery is part of a group, alliance or federation. Consideration should also be given to the timeline of the report being during the winter months when health services are accessed more by patients.

Conclusions were made following the survey that generally contact with a surgery first thing in the morning was difficult, overall patients requiring an urgent appointment were seen or had a call back by a GP within 24 hours, routine appointments were generally obtained within two weeks.

Recommendations were made that Healthwatch Plymouth carry out a further survey at the end of 2017 for comparison, meetings to be held with the poorest surgery to implement plans for improvement, NHS England to consider using patient experiences as part of any service recommissioning.