GP Patient Survey 2023: tool shows how patients rated booking appointments at each doctor’s surgery in England

Public satisfaction with the process of booking a GP appointment in England has hit a new low, according to an official NHS survey.

More than a quarter of people rated their experience of booking an appointment as poor, the highest proportion in six years. 

The government said it was investing in GP services “to tackle the 8am rush” and improve patient experience.

The latest annual GP Patient Survey, produced by Ipsos on behalf of NHS England, surveyed 760,000 people between January and April 2023. It asked what they thought about their local GP surgery, including their experiences of booking an appointment.

The results are published to GP practice level and NationalWorld has built an interactive search tool so you can find out how your surgery fared.

When patients were asked, ‘How would you describe your experience of making an appointment?’, more than a quarter (27.7%) described it as poor – the highest since current records began in 2018 and a 1.8 percentage point rise on the previous year’s figures when 25.9% described their experience as poor.

More than half (54.4%) of the respondents said their overall experience was ‘good’, but this is a 1.8 percentage point drop on the previous year’s figures and again the lowest in six years. A further 17.9% said their overall experience of booking an appointment was ‘neither good nor poor’.

Patient satisfaction peaked at 70.6% in 2021, a result likely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

A separate question asked how easy it was to get through to the surgery on the phone, with more than half of patients (50.2%) describing it as ‘not easy’, a proportion which has more than doubled in 10 years.

How does your local GP surgery compare?

Patients were able to say whether their practice was ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’ or ‘very poor’ or ‘fairly poor’. For the purpose of this analysis the ‘very good’ and ‘fairly good’ responses have been combined, as have the ‘very poor’ and ‘fairly poor’ responses. 

Across England only three surgeries had 100% of respondents rating their experience of booking appointments as good. These were:

• Reeth Medical Centre in Richmond, North Yorkshire

• Glenridding Health Centre in Glenridding, Cumbria

• Wraysdale House Surgery in Coniston, Cumbria

Not every GP had such high satisfaction ratings, however. In total, five GP surgeries in England had at least 75% of respondents rating their experience of booking appointments as poor.

How does your local GP surgery compare? You can see how your local practice was rated by using the interactive table below. If you cannot see the table below, click here to view it in a new tab.

‘£240 million of support to practices’

Last week (13 July) we revealed which GP surgeries had the best and worst overall performance in England.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We’re committed to increasing capacity so GP practices can offer more appointments from more staff than ever before.

“Appointments are already on the rise, and we recently announced £240 million of support to practices across the UK to embrace the latest technology, tackle the 8am rush and make it easier for patients to see their GP.”