Public satisfaction with GP services drops to lowest level ever recorded
It would be very interesting if there was a rural/urban split for this survey….
Public satisfaction with GP services in Great Britain has dropped significantly in the last year, to the lowest level on record.
The National Centre for Social Research’s British Social Attitudes survey saw a seven percentage point decline in the proportion of people who are satisfied with GP services.
The survey, of over 3,000 adults in England Scotland and Wales, found that only 65% were satisfied with GP services in 2017, compared with 72% in 2016.
This is the ‘lowest level of satisfaction with GP services since the survey began in 1983 and the first time that general practice has not been the highest rated service’, the report said.
The percentage of people who were dissatisfied with GP services reached an all-time high, jumping by six percentage points to 23%.
The research, carried out by the Nuffield Trust and The King’s Fund think tanks, also revealed a six percentage point drop in public satisfaction with the NHS as a whole.
The four main causes of dissatisfaction were staff shortages, long waiting times, lack of funding and government reforms.
The top four causes of satisfaction were quality of care, attitudes and behaviour of NHS staff, the range of services and treatments on offer and that the NHS is free at the point of delivery.