Patient experience for GP patients in Black Country has improved - Survey

Patients' experience with GP practices in the Black Country has improved over the past year, new survey figures suggest.

But a health think tank said policy makers and GPs know more must still be done, especially for poorer areas that are "under-funded" and "under-doctored".

The Office for National Statistics'  (ONS) most recent health insight survey, carried out in March received responses from 426 people who tried to contact their GP in NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board recently.

Of those, 70.9 per-cent said it was an overall "good" experience – an improvement from 59.4 per cent recorded in the first wave of the survey which started at the end of July 2024.

Meanwhile, the proportion of patients reporting an overall "poor" experience fell from 21.2 per cent in the first survey to 14.8 per cent in the most recent one.

The rest said their experience was neither good nor poor.

Across England, 73.6 per cent of patients said their experience with their GP was good, and 10 per cent said it was poor.

It marked an improvement from seven months prior, when 67.4 per cent reported a good experience and 15 per cent a poor experience.

Health think tank the Nuffield Trust said the recent ONS data is "welcome news".

Dr Becks Fisher, director of research and policy and a practising GP, said: "These are from a low baseline though, and policymakers, GPs and their teams will know that more needs to be done.

"This is particularly the case in poorer areas, which are relatively under-funded, under-doctored and where patient experience of general practice tends to be worse."

She added the public has been "deeply unhappy" with GP services for several years.

She said: "Our analysis of the 2024 British Social Attitudes survey showed overall satisfaction with general practice at an all-time low of just 31% – down from 34% the previous year.

"Dissatisfaction with access to general practice and the ease of getting an appointment play a big role in low overall NHS satisfaction.

"Improving people's experience of accessing general practice is a priority for government, who have put money and effort into improving various aspects of access – from the phone systems practices are using, to boosting the number of GPs."

In the most recent in depth survey by NHS England and Ipsos in 2024,  more than two million people registered with GP practices in England,  were asked a variety of questions on subjects ranging from their overall experience of their GP practice to how easy it was to contact someone on the phone.

The top five surgeries in the West Midlands based on people saying they had a good experience according to the latest figures that cover last year were: 

Portland Medical Practice, Aldridge: 94.1 per cent

St Mary's Surgery, Bloxwich: 94.0 per cent

Northway Medical Centre, Sedgley: 92.7 per cent

Rangeways Road Surgery, Kingswinford: 91.9 per cent

Glebefields Surgery, Tipton: 91.0 per cent