Health and Care Experience Survey 2013/14 Volume 1: National Results

5 GP Practices - The Reception and Wait to be Seen Within the Practice

Summary

• One in seven patients felt that the wait to be seen once they had arrived at the practice was too long.
• As in the previous survey, one in five patients were not happy that other patients could overhear what they said to staff in the reception area.
• The helpfulness of receptionists continues to be highly rated.

Privacy in the reception area

5.1 Patients were asked whether, during their visits to the GP practice in the last twelve months, other patients could overhear what they said to the staff in the reception area.

• 19 per cent of patients said they could not be overheard by other patients while talking to staff, while 20 per cent said that other patients could overhear them and were not happy about it;
• 61 per cent said they could be overheard but did not mind (Figure 8).

5.2 These results are the same as those recorded for 2011/12.

Figure 8: In the reception area, can other patients overhear what you say to the staff?

Receptionists

5.3 Patients that had a receptionist at their practice were asked how helpful they had found the receptionists during their visits to the GP practice in the last 12 months.

• 94 per cent of patients found the receptionists very helpful or fairly helpful in their visits in the last twelve months (57 per cent found the receptionists very helpful and 36 per cent fairly helpful);
• 6 per cent found the receptionist not very helpful or not helpful at all (Figure 9).

5.4 These results, though still positive, are very slightly lower than the previous survey.

Figure 9: How helpful the patients found the receptionists

Waiting to be seen after arriving at the GP practice

5.5 Patients were asked how they felt about the time they usually had to wait to be seen after arriving at the GP practice in the last 12 months.

5.6 Of the patients who could remember, 86 per cent thought that the time they had usually waited to be seen after arriving at their GP practice was reasonable while 14 per cent thought this was too long;

5.7 This represents a slight decrease from the 2011/12 and 2009/10 surveys, where respectively 87 and 88 per cent of patients rated the time they had to wait as reasonable (Figure 10).

Figure 10: How patients felt about the time they usually had to wait after arriving at their GP practice in 2009/10, 2011/12 and 2013/14