The results of a new patient survey have revealed the best and worst GP practices in the Swindon area.
NHS England has released the full facts and figures from the latest annual independent survey that is sent out to more than two million people across the UK to find out how they feel about their local GPs.
Questions cover a variety of factors, like how easy it is to book an appointment, how easy the practice is to contact by phone, how good the healthcare professional was at listening to and treating them, and what happens if an appointment is needed out-of-hours.
The biggest indicator of patient satisfaction is how people answered "Overall, how would you describe your experience of your GP practice?"
GPs based slightly outside of Swindon received the largest percentage of people responding to this with 'fairly good' or 'very good'.
Purton Surgery had a 90 per cent satisfaction rate, while Elm Tree Surgery in Shrivenham closely followed with 89 per cent, and Lawn Medical Centre could be considered the best in Swindon itself with 88 per cent of people responding positively.
On the other end of the scale, Ashington House Surgery had only 43 per cent of patients noting that they were satisfied with their service and Merchiston Surgery did slightly better with a 51 per cent satisfaction rate, just below Park Lane Practice's 52 per cent.
View the full range of patient satisfaction results in the graph below.
Booking appointments is often a bit of a bugbear for patients.
The survey queried every step of the process people go through when trying to see their GP, then asked for an overall opinion on how satisfied patients were with making appointments at each practice.
Several GP practices received disapproving feedback about this, with a third of the 23 practices in the Swindon area failing to get a 50 per cent satisfaction rate.
Ashington House Surgery had only 21 per cent of patients saying they were happy with how easy it was to book appointments, while Merchiston Surgery fared even worse with just 19 per cent.
On the other hand, Elm Tree Surgery saw 82 per cent of respondents leaving positive feedback and Lawn Medical Centre had the second-highest satisfaction rate of 76 per cent.
Nationally, 71 per cent of the 750,000 people who responded to the survey in England were satisfied with the service they received from their GP practice and 14 per cent said their local medical centre did poorly.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel