Results from our Patient Satisfaction Survey (November 2022-31 December 2022)

Introduction

From November 2022 until today, we’ve run a Patient Satisfaction Survey to find out how satisfied our patients are with the services we provide. We expected to find significant dissatisfaction based on the abuse our receptionists encounter on a daily basis. The results, however, left us pleasantly surprised.

This is not a reason to rest on our laurels. Instead, we want to continue to improve our services where this is possible.

A significant problem causing dissatisfaction amongst our patients is the telephone system. No big surprise for us there. This is also the main factor we are trying to improve. Early this year (2023), we aim to have a queuing system in place for our phone system. We had hoped to have this in place from the start of the New Year, however, staff illness has pushed this back a little, but preparations are being made at the moment.

Below are the results of the survey with 383 responses, which we believe form a good representation of the practice population. We have shared the questions and results of the questions below.

The Results

Question 1: Thinking about your recent contact with your GP practice, how easy was it for you to seek medical care or advice? This could include contact with a healthcare professional in person, through a telephone call, video consultation, or written interaction (email / text message / online consultation form)

(**40.5% very easy, 25.6% fairly easy, 7.6% neither easy nor difficult, 10.4% fairly difficult, 15.4% very difficult**)

Question 2: How do you feel about the length of time you waited for care or advice after first contacting the practice?

**(80.6% as soon as necessary, 8.4% should have been a bit sooner, 11%, should have been a lot sooner)**

Question 3: Which of these was the main way you received care or advice on this occasion?

**(90.3% in person, 6.5% telephone call, 0% video consultation, 1% written interaction, 2% other)**

Question 4: How well did that work?

**(80.9% very well, 11.3% fairly well, 3.1% not very well, 3.9% not well at all, 0.8% don’t know)**

Question 5: Overall, thinking about the reason you wanted care or advice, were your needs met?

**(76.8% definitely, 17.5% to some extent, 4.7% not at all, 1% don’t know)**

Question 6: Overall, how would you describe your experience of your GP practice on this occasion?

**(75.7% very good, 11% fairly good, 3.1% neither good nor poor, 4.4% fairly poor, 5.5% very poor, 0.3% don’t know)**

Question 7: How frequently are you offered an appointment alternative to a GP by the reception team?

**(27% very infrequently, 17.7% infrequently, 38.4% neither infrequently nor frequently, 14% frequently, 2.9% very frequently)**

What’s next?

Our next plan is to put in place a queuing system on our phones as soon as we can.

Although we planned to have this in place by the first of January, we have not yet succeeded in doing so. Staff sickness stopped us from getting the messages recorded in time for our telephone supplier to allow the queuing system to be live from that date (or rather from the 3rd of January when we are open again).

Putting a queuing system is not a simple click of a button. Instead, we need to record messages to play while people are waiting. And, that’s the easy part finished.

Next, our supplier needs to develop a plan. This needs to bear in mind all weekend days, bank holidays, half-day closures for training, times of day, etc. This takes quite some time to set up. We hope to have it in place soon and will keep you updated on any developments.

Once the new system is in place, we will restart the survey (a duplicate one so the old results do not influence the new ones) and we will compare these to determine if the change we made translates into a better experience for our patients.

We can promise you one thing. We will keep an eye on things and will continue to work towards improving the experience our patients have at our practice. Although we will never have a perfect experience, (we can’t get everything right all the time) we won’t give up on getting as close as possible to a perfect experience.

Thank you to all our patients who have taken the time to complete the Patient Survey November-January. We really appreciate it and, as you can see, we use the results to help us improve our services further.