NHSE Survey of GP Practices

NHS England has commissioned a survey of each GP surgery in England in order to better understand waiting times in General Practice. The survey will run through October, and will involve every practice in England receiving a telephone call. NHS England has advised the call will last no longer than three to four minutes, and will ask when the third next available routine appointment is.

The GPC has expressed their deep concerns to NHS England regarding the potentially misleading or poor quality data this survey may produce, especially given the vast variability in appointment systems from practice to practice, as well as the survey failing to accurately assess emergency appointments, telephone triage and other modes of access. They have also questioned the expenditure on such a survey when General Practice itself is collapsing due to chronic under-funding.

Can we remind you that GP Practices are under no obligation to respond to this survey. However, if you wish to do so, the LMC’s advice is as follows:

• Direct the call to the Practice Manager or another suitable manager. If no such person is immediately available, then take a return contact number and instruct the caller that someone will call them back later
• The person giving the data should tell the caller when the third next available routine appointment with a doctor is
• Appointments which can be booked into a locality hub are valid for the purposes of this survey, and the third next available routine appointment should be given
• If no such routine appointment exists due to the design of your appointment system (eg: Total Triage, On-The-Day, Nurse Triage etc) then inform the caller you are unable to answer the question, and explain the reason for this

Once again, compliance with this survey is entirely voluntary and practices should only participate if they are willing and able to do so.