Experiences of Primary Care

28th March 2013

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published a report exploring variations in the experiences of different people using primary care services. The report draws on the results of the 2011/12 Scottish patient experience survey of GP and local NHS services. The report explores whether factors influence people’s experiences such as patient characteristics - age, gender, ethnicity, deprivation, health status for example. It also looks at the influence of GP practices and regional level factors.

We found that the factors that had the strongest effects on people’s experiences were:

The GP practice that they were registered with – there was considerable variation between practices, especially when it came to accessing GP practice services. There was also considerable variation between practices in people’s experiences of doctors and nurses, and in the overall care provided. The size of their GP practice – people reported better experiences at smaller practices. The effect of practice size was greatest when it came to accessing services.

Age – we found that older patients reported better experiences. The effects of age were greatest for people’s experiences of doctors and nurses, and the overall care provided.
Health status – people with better health status reported better experience. Health status had a similar effect across all areas covered by the survey.
We also found some differences in people’s experiences due to gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, whether in work or education, being a carer, having a disability. However these differences were less marked.

Related information:

The full statistical publication (Variations in the Experiences of Primary Care Patients)
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/03/2822