Braintree: GP Patient Survery 2024 reveals best GP practices

Thousands of GP users across Mid Essex took part in the GP Patient Survey, a nationwide project which gathers data about patients' experiences of their GP practices.

For the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System survey, which includes practices in Braintree, the surrounding areas, and in South Essex, 51,451 questionnaires were sent out.

There was a response rate of 31 per cent, with just over 16,000 questionnaires returned.

Medical - an illustrative image of a doctor (Image: Pexels)

The data was collected by IPSOS and the NHS between January 2 and March 25.

Patients were asked about their experience of GP practice services and appointments.

There were also questions related to health, pharmacies, dentistry and some background questions.

Ranked - The Freshford Practice in Finchingfield (Image: Google Maps)

Residents’ responses are then graded by the percentage of people who picked from the options of very good, fairly good, neither good nor poor, fairly poor, and very poor.

Surgeries are ranked on how ‘good’ they are.

Here is how the surgeries in the Braintree area ranked by overall experience:

Dr David Oliver, senior partner at The Freshwell Health Centre, has commented on the survey results.

He said: "We were really pleased to hear that, according to the GP Patient Survey, that 99 per cent of our patients said that they had a good overall experience of our practice.

"This was a welcome pat of the back for our amazing team.

"GPs across the country are all working really hard to meet an ever-increasing workload.

"General Practice has become badly under-funded over the last few years, making the task of meeting patient demand next to impossible.

"The Government gives practices just £107.57 for each patient per year, whatever their health needs, that’s just 30p per day.

"We believe that general practice needs a bigger slice of NHS funding so that we can train and hire more GPs, deliver the services you require and to get appointments."

Ranked low - Collingwood Road Surgery (Image: Google Maps)

For the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System overall, 71 per cent of patients described their experience of their GP practices as ‘good’, this is a decrease on the national average of 74 per cent.

When asked how easy or difficult it is to contact your GP practice on the phone, the overall local result was 42 per cent for easy and 46 per cent said it was difficult.

The national response to this question was that 50 per cent said it was easy and 38 per cent of patients said it was difficult.

Whereas when it came to a question about using the NHS application, locally 40 per cent said it was easy and 43% said it was difficult, this was not too dissimilar to the national result of 45 per cent and then 39 per cent finding it difficult.