Description:
This indicator measures the percentage of people who rate the overall care provided by their GP practice as “Excellent” or “Good”.
The indicator is based on the reported experience from a sample of people registered with a GP practice in Scotland, as a proxy for experience across the NHS. This has been chosen because the GP practice is the first point of contact with the NHS for most people and the vast majority of all NHS contacts are with primary care services.
Fieldwork for the 2021/22 survey was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaires were sent out in November 2021 asking about people’s experiences during the previous 12 months. Therefore, there were a number of important changes to how services are provided that should be taken into account when making comparisons with previous surveys:
- Guidance was issued to GP practices not to treat patients face to face unless clinically necessary.
- Social distancing was introduced in practices.
- While there were more remote consultations, electronic booking systems were used less as existing systems couldn’t screen for COVID-19 symptoms.
Source of Data:
The data for this indicator is sourced from the Health and Care Experience Survey: https://www.gov.scot/collections/health-and-care-experience-survey/
This survey has been conducted every 2 years since 2009, and is sent to a random sample of people who are registered with a GP in Scotland. It asks about people’s experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and other local healthcare services; receiving care, support and help with everyday living; and caring responsibilities. Results are available at GP practice, GP cluster, Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Board and Scotland level.
The current confidence interval around the estimate from the Health and Care Experience Survey is ±0.35%.
Definitions:
Respondents are asked “Overall, how would you rate the care provided by your GP practice?” with possible response options of “Excellent”, “Good”, “Fair”, “Poor” or “Very poor”. This indicator is based on the percentage of respondents who responded with “Excellent” or “Good”.
Criteria for Change:
This evaluation is based on:
- any difference within +/- 1 percentage point of the previous survey’s figure suggests that the position is more likely to be maintaining than showing any change.
- an increase of 1 percentage point or more suggests that the position is improving
- a decrease of 1 percentage point or more suggests that the position is worsening.
A guide for the general methodology of indicators can be found here: https://nationalperformance.gov.scot/