Daily Insight: Not such a good experience

HSJ’s analysis of the 2022 GP Patient Survey results has revealed the strongest and weakest health systems for satisfaction with access to general practice, according to patients.

The major annual survey, published earlier this month, was carried out between January and April this year, with more than 700,000 responses received.

HSJ analysed responses to the questions “Overall, how would you describe your experience of making an appointment” and “Overall, how would you describe your experience of your GP practice” by patients in each of the 42 integrated care systems, looking at the percentage of patients who said “very good” or “fairly good”.

The analysis found systems with above-average scores tend to have higher numbers of GPs per head of population – although the correlation was weak on both.

The national picture also looked bleak, with patient satisfaction levels dropping further. The numbers of patients having an overall “good” experience of making an appointment dropped by around 15 percentage points from 2021, while patients who reported a “good” overall experience of their GP practice also dropped by more than 10 percentage points.

Jonathon Holmes, policy adviser at The King’s Fund, said the declining rates were driven by difficulties accessing services and long waiting times, while highlighting the need for “greater multidisciplinary working, additional roles and using different platforms effectively”.

Still waiting

When a patient is referred for cancer, the aim is for them to be treated within 62 days. And, if their treatment hasn’t started within 62 days, it definitely should have started within 104 days – the NHS’s “backstop” standard. 

Which is why – even against the backdrop of multiple missed NHS targets as the service navigates its recovery from the pandemic – it’s particularly shocking that leaked data reveals 1,366 people with a confirmed cancer diagnosis who have been referred with “urgent suspected cancer” are still waiting to be treated three months on. That’s also an increase on 1,297 recorded a fortnight earlier. 

These 1,000-plus patients are a subset of the 10,497 referred patients – the larger figure including those whose referral was not formally marked “urgent”, or have not yet been tested or received a result –  who have been waiting more than 104 days. 

One senior figure in cancer policy warned: “Everyone – the centre and systems – knows how serious things are. It is just that these are not problems you can turn around very easily without a big long-term investment in staff and kit.”