Health and Care Experience Survey 2015/16 - National Results

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

Summary

• Once in the GP practice, patients rated the helpfulness of reception staff very highly (94 per cent positive). This follows the similarly high rating of helpfulness over the phone in the previous chapter.
• 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.
• One in seven patients felt that the wait to be seen once they had arrived at the practice was too long.

Receptionists

6.1 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 responded positively (58 per cent found the receptionists very helpful and 36 per cent fairly helpful);
• six per cent found the receptionist not very helpful or not helpful at all (Figure 8).

6.2 These results are the same as the previous survey.

Figure 8: How helpful the patients found the receptionists (%)

Privacy in the reception area

6.3 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. Excluding patients that didn't know:

• 19 per cent of patients said they could not be overheard by other patients while talking to staff
• 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 9)

6.4 Around four in five of patients therefore believe that they can be overheard at the GP practice reception area. These results are the same as those recorded in the previous two surveys.

Figure 9: In the reception area, can other patients overhear what you say to the staff? (%)

Waiting to be seen after arriving at the GP practice

6.5 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.

6.6 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 (Figure 10);

6.7 These figures are also very similar to previous surveys.

Figure 10: How patients felt about the time they usually had to wait after arriving at their GP practice (%)