The GP Patient Experience Survey, ‘Your Doctor, Your Experience, Your Say’, will measure the quality of services patients receive and provide greater public accountability to delivering services that better meet the needs of local patients.
The questionnaire will ask patients about their experiences of booking an appointment, the treatment they receive from their GP and their satisfaction with GP opening hours.
The questionnaire will be issued to around 241,000 patients throughout Northern Ireland from January 2009–March 2009. Patients are randomly selected and all responses are confidential. Taking part is completely voluntary.
Launching the questionnaire the Minister said: “Patients are at the heart of everything we do. It is vitally important that the services we provide meet their needs and expectations. The GP Patient Experience Survey will give us feedback on how GP services are performing and crucially help us plan to meet future healthcare needs.
“For the vast majority of patients, their first point of contact with health and social care is when they go to see their local GP. I appreciate that access to these services is therefore a high priority for all patients. GP practices are at the forefront of delivering frontline care. They develop partnerships with patients, enabling them to remain healthy and in particular, helping those who suffer from long term illnesses to manage their conditions.
The Minister concluded: “I would encourage all those who receive a questionnaire to complete it as soon as possible. It is of course voluntary but this is your opportunity to make your views known - good or bad - and to help shape your local service.”
Individual responses to the questionnaire will be completely confidential. Only anonymised data will be provided to the Department, Health and Social Services Boards and GP practices to help improve GP services.
Survey results will be made available by June 2009.
Notes to Editors:
1. The GP Patient Experience Survey will be carried out by IPSOS. IPSOS MORI is a registered and independent survey organisation and strictly adheres to the Market Research Society's ethical code of conduct.
2. The survey will be introduced in Northern Ireland for the first time from this year as part of the GMS Contract. It is now a UK wide survey and has successfully run in England for the previous two years. The Department is carrying out survey in conjunction with the other three UK Departments of Health.
- Approximately 600 patients per average GP practice in NI will be surveyed.
- The survey will commence in January 2009 and the initial payment results report will be available by May 2009.
- The full survey results reports will be available from June 2009.
The survey includes questions on access, which will be used to directly reward practices based on level of patients’ satisfaction with GP practices appointments.
3. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has worked closely with the BMA to develop the survey.
4. UK wide BMA GPC has agreed that GP practices’ performance in the Patient Access standard will use the results of the Patient Experience Survey to measure, monitor and award points to a practice in two of the Quality and Outcome Framework (QOF) indicators.
5. An information campaign will accompany the survey and will include posters, leaflets, FAQs and a Survey Website.
6. Press enquiries to the DHSSPS Press Office on 028 9052 0575. Outside office hours, please contact the Duty Press Officer via pager number 07699 715 440 and your call will be returned.
