Percentage of patients who found it easy to get through to someone on the phone at their GP practice

What this data shows:

Service users should be able to access care and treatment promptly.

How the data is gathered:

The proportion of respondents to the GP patient survey who gave a positive answer to ‘Generally, how easy is it to get through to someone at your GP practice on the phone?’

Score = (numerator divided by denominator) x 100.

Numerator is total responses who answered ‘Very easy’ or ‘Fairly easy’ to question 1 ‘Generally, how easy is it to get through to someone at your GP practice on the phone?’

Denominator is total responses to this question excluding ‘Haven't tried’ responses.

The scores for all GP practices are compared nationally and grouped into three bandings:

  • ‘Among the worst’ – these are scores that fall within the bottom 25% of all scores nationally in response to this question. 
  • ‘In the middle range’ – these are scores that fall in the middle 50% of all scores nationally in response to this question.
  • ‘Among the best’ – these are scores that fall within the top 25% of all scores nationally in response to this question.

The GP Patient Survey is sent out once a year to over 2 million adults aged 16 and over who are registered with a GP in England. The results of the survey for each GP practice are weighted to adjust the data to account for potential differences between the demographic profile of all eligible patients in a practice and the patients who complete a questionnaire. More information about the survey can be found at the GP Patient Survey website: http://www.gp-patient.co.uk/faq.

When using indicators to make comparisons between general practices, it is important to consider the context in which GP's provide services. For example, the characteristics of the patients treated by a practice – factors like age or deprivation – can affect the value of an indicator, unless these factors are taken into account when the indicator is calculated. Similarly, a practice’s performance on an indicator can sometimes be influenced by other organisations that are caring for the same patients – local hospitals or community services, for example.

More information about the data source:

Data will be suppressed for GP practices where the total responses for this question is less than 10.

Data Source:

GP Patient Survey

Data Period:

Annual

Data Supplier:

GP Patient Survey

Further Information:

https://gp-patient.co.uk/