Patient Experience survey of GP and local nhs services 2011/12 Volume 1: National Results

4 GP Practices - The reception and Environment

Summary

4.1 Overall patients' experience of the reception area and reception staff is fairly positive. Most patients found the reception staff very helpful or fairly helpful and almost all patients found the reception area very clean or fairly clean. A large proportion of patients also found that the wait to be seen after they had arrived at the GP surgery was reasonable. More information on these results and other questions relating to the GP surgery reception and environment are outlined below.

Privacy in the reception area

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

• 19 per cent said they could not be overheard by other patients while talking to staff. 20 per cent of patients said that other patients could overhear them and were not happy about it and 61 per cent said they could be overheard but did not mind (Chart 5).

Chart 5: Can other patients overhear what you say to the staff in the reception area?

Receptionists

4.3 Patients were asked how helpful they had found the receptionists during their visits to the GP surgery in the last twelve months.

• 94 per cent of patients found the receptionists very helpful or fairly helpful in their visits in the last twelve months (58 per cent found the receptionists very helpful and 36 per cent fairly helpful);
• 6 percent found the receptionist not very helpful or not helpful at all
  (Chart 6).

Chart 6: How helpful patients found the receptionists

Cleanliness of the GP surgery

4.4 Patients were asked for the first time in this year's survey how clean they had found the GP surgery or health centre during their visits in the last twelve months.

• 76 per cent of patients found their GP surgery very clean;
• 23 per cent of patients found it fairly clean;
• 1 percent of patients found it not very clean.

Waiting to be seen after arriving at the GP surgery

4.5 Patients were asked how they felt about the time they usually had to wait to be seen after arriving at their GP surgery, during their visits in the last twelve months.

• Of patients who could remember, 87 per cent thought that the time they had usually waited to be seen after arriving at their GP surgery was reasonable while 13 per cent thought that it was too long;

• Results are very similar to the 2009/10 survey, where 88 per cent of patients rated the time they had to wait as reasonable.