NHS patient satisfaction at lowest since 2007

Posted on 8th March 2019

A report published by the Kings Fund and Nuffield Trust has found that public satisfaction with NHS services fell to 53% in 2018 from 56% the previous year.

Key findings from the report are:

Those over 65 years of age were generally more satisfied than the younger generations.
Conservative supporters were more satisfied than Labour supporters.
Survey respondents cited quality of care, free at the point of use, range of treatments/services available and the attitudes/behaviour of NHS staff as reasons for being satisfied.
Survey respondents cited long waiting times, lack of funding, staff shortages and wasted money as reasons for being dissatisfied.

Even the celebrations around the 70th anniversary of the NHS last year couldn’t stop the decline in satisfaction, despite the government announcing an increase in funding to the service.

However, whilst the overall satisfaction of the service is down on the previous year, it is still well above the low of 1997 which was just 34%.
Satisfaction with individual services differs greatly with just 26% of respondents stating they were very or quite satisfied with social care, but 70% of respondents stating they were very or quite satisfied with outpatient care.

2018 is the first time since 1983, when the survey began, that GP services did not receive the highest rating. GP satisfaction is still relatively high with 63% of survey respondents stating they were very or quite satisfied with the service. However, to put this into context, satisfaction in this category has been on a downward trend since 2009 which saw satisfaction at 80%.

The full report can be found on the Kings Fund website.

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