Would you recommend your doctor’s practice?

Dr Chris Duffy, NHS HMR CCG Chair and local GP

From 1 December, when you visit your GP practice you will be asked whether or not you would recommend it to your family and friends.

The national Friends and Family Test is a quick and simple way of collecting patient feedback to improve services and is already running within hospitals.

When you visit your doctor’s practice, you will be given the opportunity to provide your views – anonymously – by answering a simple question about your experience:

How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?

You will be asked to choose one of six options, ranging from ‘extremely likely’ to ‘extremely unlikely’, and will be invited to explain your reasons for your response.

You will be able to answer the question on a paper form or using an electronic interactive touchscreen within the practice.

The results from the survey will provide your practice with invaluable feedback which, along with other sources of information, will enable them to make improvements to make sure patients have a positive experience.

Dr Chris Duffy, local GP and Chair of NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Clinical Commissioning Group (HMR CCG), said: “This simple question gives patients the opportunity to provide honest feedback about their experience of their GP practice. Responding is optional, but we’d encourage people to complete the forms as it helps practices to understand what they need to improve in the future.”

The anonymous results will be formally reported to NHS England – the organisation responsible for GP practices’ NHS contracts – and will also be made available to HMR CCG as part of its work to support improvements in primary care.

The results, updated monthly, will also be publically accessible on both the NHS England www.england.nhs.uk and NHS Choices www.nhs.uk websites; which will help both new and current patients make choices based on the experiences of others.

For more information about the Friends and Family Test, please visit:

www.nhs.uk/friendsandfamily