Experiences of NHS healthcare services in England: December 2024

• An estimated 95.7% of adults who tried to contact their GP practice in the last 28 days were successful; the percentage making contact on the same day has shown a small, consistent increase to 78.5% in Wave 4 (15 October to 6 November 2024) from 76.8% in Wave 1 (23 July to 15 August 2024).

• Of those who tried to contact their GP practice in the last 28 days, 73.8% perceived their overall experience as either "Very good" or "Good"; this has also increased consistently over the first four waves, from 67.4% in Wave 1.

• Of those given an appointment or a callback from a GP or healthcare professional in the last 28 days, 80.8% were either given a face-to-face appointment or asked if they wanted one.

• Of those who had a face-to-face appointment in the last 28 days, 35.1% have a preferred healthcare professional; of this group 61.0% were able to see their preferred professional.

• Over half of adults (52.8%) reported having an NHS dentist; of those who attended an NHS dental appointment in the last 28 days, 89.6% were "Very satisfied" or "Satisfied" with the care they received.

• 94.1% of adults who did not have a dentist and who had tried to make an NHS dental appointment in the last 28 days, reported they were unsuccessful in making an appointment.

• The majority of adults (88.9%) who had used an NHS pharmacy service in the last 28 days were "Very satisfied" or "Satisfied" with the most recent service they received; the percentage reporting a problem getting an NHS prescription has shown a consistent decrease to 14.4% in Wave 4 from 20.1% in Wave 1.

The Health Insight Survey (HIS) is commissioned by NHS England and seeks to give adults the opportunity to offer regular feedback about their experiences of the NHS. The study is a longitudinal survey, which started on 23 July 2024. Each participant will be asked to complete the survey once every "wave", with each "wave" lasting four weeks.

Findings in this survey are based on self-reported responses from individuals and should not be confused with administrative data sources used to monitor similar issues.

Questionnaire changes

From Wave 4 (15 October to 6 November 2024) new questions were introduced to provide further insight on whether adults, who were given a face-to-face or telephone appointment, were asked if they wanted a face-to-face appointment, as well as if they have a preferred healthcare professional, and were able to get an appointment with them. Findings from these new questions can be found in Tables 41 to 46 of the dataset accompanying this release.

Sample changes

At the end of Wave 3 those in the sample who had not responded at all in any of the first three waves were removed from the sampling list, to avoid the continued receipt of emails. This resulted in the removal of 115,041 adults (out of 239,813). Those removed in this way are still included in the response rate calculation and weighting methodology as non-responders as they are unlikely to be a random subset of the sample.

Quality

All percentages are weighted to ensure the survey sample more accurately reflects the wider population. However, the HIS sample, as with all surveys, may still be subject to possible bias that is not fully addressed by the weighting methodology.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Experiences of NHS healthcare services in England Quality and Methodology Information.

Official statistics in development

These statistics are labelled as "official statistics in development". Until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics". Read more about the change in the Guide to official statistics in development.

We are developing how we collect and produce the data to improve the quality of these statistics. Once the developments are complete, we will review the statistics with the Statistics Head of Profession. We will decide whether the statistics are of sufficient quality and value to be published as official statistics, or whether further development is needed. Production may be stopped if they are not of sufficient quality or value. Users will be informed of the outcome and any changes.

We value your feedback on these statistics. Contact us at Health.Studies@ons.gov.uk.