Scottish Government

2. Outputs of the Survey

2.1 Overview of the reporting

The various stages and levels of reporting the survey results are shown in table 1:

Table 1: Overview of reporting

2.2 GP practice reports

Reports for individual GP practices are available from a link on the page here:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/GPPatientExperienceSurvey

The results are shown as the percentage positive. This means the percentage of people who answered in a positive way. For example, when asked if they could get through on the phone, if people said always or most of the time these have been counted as positive answers. See chapter 9.7 for more information about percentage positive.

An example of how results are reported is given below:

The bars illustrate the % positive as green, and the % negative as red. For example, if people said they could rarely or never get through on the phone, these have been counted as negative. Where answers are neither positive nor negative, the % is shown in yellow - for example if people answered sometimes to the question about getting through on the phone.

The number of respondents that answered positively and negatively for each question is displayed when the mouse cursor hovers over the bar charts. The weighted national average is included so that a practice's results can be compared with the result for all patients in Scotland. The reports also showed the number of people who were sent a survey and number who responded. Breakdowns of age, gender and the percentage of respondents whose day-to-day activities were limited by a health problem or disability were provided.

Provisional versions of the reports were released on Tuesday 27 April. These reports were updated on Tuesday 27 July. A small number of changes were made to the reports.

The final reports included 3,272 responses received after the survey closed that could not be included in the provisional reports due to time constraints.

The provisional reports included the quartile instead of the national weighted average:

The quartile indicated how the % positive result for this GP surgery compared to all surgeries in Scotland. 1 indicated that the surgery was in the top 25% for that question, and 4 showed that the surgery was in the bottom 25%.

In response to user feedback, the definition of which answers were defined as positive was changed for two medicines questions to include "most of the time" as a positive answer instead of being neither positive or negative in the provisional results. The percent positive text was consequently changed to remove the word "always" from the two statements. The questions were:

• 16b. I know enough about what my medicines are for
• 16c. I know enough about how and when to take my medicines

2.3 Online reporting system

On the same day that the provisional reports were published an online reporting system went live for GP Practices, Community Health Partnerships ( CHPs), NHS Boards and Scottish Government/ ISD. Each GP practice could download their own report and also see more detailed frequencies. NHS Board and CHP level users were able to download percent positive results for all of their practices into a single spreadsheet. Two new features have been developed for the online reporting system which will be available from 27 July 2010 onwards:

Benchmarking facility

The benchmarking facility allows users to compare a practice against the unweighted ³ average results for practices that are demographically similar. The system allows benchmarking by four variables:

• NHS Board unweighted average
• Practice size
• Urban / Rural classification (Scottish Government 6-fold was used)
• Deprivation (percentage of patients living in Scotland's 15% most deprived areas)

Question 20 text comments

Question 20 of the survey asked if patients had anything else that they would like to comment on. Over 45,000 patients chose to write a comment here. These comments were anonymised and coded into themes and reported back to GP practices, CHPs and NHS Boards on the online system. Several thousand longer comments will be included on the system once they have been anonymised. In the future a qualitative analysis will be undertaken at national level.

2.4 Access results

The results of the 48 hour and advance access questions in the survey were published on 18 May:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/05/GPAccess2010

They were available at GP practice level in the format of an excel spreadsheet:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/GPaccess2010xls

The Survey asked GP patients

• whether, in the last year, they had been able to obtain a consultation with an appropriate health professional within 2 working days; and
• whether, in the last year, they had been able to book an appointment with a GP more than 2 days ahead.

These results were published separately because they informed two indicators in the QOF. 48 hour access results inform the indicator PE7, and advance access results feed into PE8. Together these are worth 58.5 points out of a possible 1000 that GP practices can obtain. Points are calculated on a sliding scale depending on the percentage of surveyed patients obtaining access. For both indicators, all practices with 90% or more of patients answering positively will achieve full points; for PE7, no points are awarded for 70% or less and for PE8 the lower threshold is 60%.

The methodology used to calculate the percentage of patients obtaining 48 hour and advance access differs from that used in the national report. The methodology for the access results was:

48 hour access

Positive responses are those where either:

• the patient had a face-to-face or telephone consultation with a GP or nurse within 2 working days, or
• was offered an appointment within 2 working days but the exact day/time did not suit them or it was not with the person they preferred to see

Advance access

Positive responses are those where either:

• the patient was able to book an appointment in advance, or
• was offered an appointment in advance but the exact day/time did not suit them or it was not with the person they preferred to see

For the national report the only responses classed as positive are where the patient had a face-to-face or telephone consultation with a GP or nurse within 2 working days for 48 hour access and where the patient was able to book an appointment in advance for advance access.

2.5 National report

The national report was released on 27 July, 2010. The report presents national weighted results for each survey question. There are also sections covering results by GP practices and NHS Boards, and results by practice and patient characteristics.

2.6 Community Health Partnerships ( CHP) level reporting

Results at CHP level are available in an excel spreadsheet tool that presents results for each question by CHP in the format of percentage positive or negative. More detailed spreadsheets showing individual question responses are also available.

2.7 NHS Board level reporting

Results at NHS Board level are available in an excel spreadsheet tool that presents results for each question by NHS Board in the format of percentage positive or negative. More detailed spreadsheets showing individual question responses are also available.

2.8 Topic reports

It is anticipated that some topic reports will be published in due course. These reports will look at particular topics in more detail such as patients with long term conditions.

2.9 Availability of data for further research

An anonymised dataset will be made available for further research through the Essex data archive ( http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/). No survey ID numbers or other patient identifiers will be included. Other data items that could potentially identify patients (for example age) will only be available in summarised form.