WIREDGOV

Dan Wellings, Senior Fellow at The King’s Fund responded to the 2019 GP Patient Survey and the latest Combined Performance Summary 

‘The 2019 GP Patient Survey shows that once people are able to get into their local surgery their experience remains overwhelmingly positive, but getting through the door is a significant problem. Nearly a third of people say that they have difficulty reaching their practice on the phone, up from just one in five in 2012. People’s overall experience of making a GP appointment also continues to decline, while only a small proportion of patients are using online services.

‘That nine out of ten patients say they have confidence and trust in their GP and the vast majority feel listened to and involved in decisions about their care is testament to the ongoing efforts of GPs to maintain high quality of care while working under significant pressure.

‘The government’s funding boost for general practice and creation of new primary care networks offers the hope of being able to start to tackle these issues but only if they are supported to prioritise improving access and maintaining continuity of care.

‘The latest hospital performance figures also published show that the number of people waiting for planned hospital treatment reached a record 4.5 million in May this year, and just four out of 119 major accident and emergency departments met the target for seeing 95 per cent of patients within four hours. This underlines the findings of our latest Quarterly Monitoring Report that patients face a long wait before they will see improvements in care as a result on the NHS funding boost.’