According to The Telegraph:
Public satisfaction with GP services has fallen to the lowest level on record, new figures show, as perception of the NHS as a whole dropped to the worst point in 25 years.
Less than two fifths (38 per cent) of people were satisfied with the service from family doctors last year, according to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, the lowest proportion since the survey began in 1983.
It dropped by 30 percentage points compared to 2019 and, for the first time, more people are unhappy (42 per cent) with the service than satisfied.
The unprecedented fall in public satisfaction with GPs comes after patients struggled to access care during the pandemic, particularly face-to-face appointments.
The top priority for improving the NHS identified by respondents (48 per cent) was to make it easier to get a GP appointment.
Only around a third (36 per cent) of respondents said they were happy with how the NHS was run, the lowest level since 1997. This decreased from 53 per cent in 2019, representing a 32 per cent relative fall.
Around 3,100 people were questioned by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in September and October 2021.
Prof John Appleby, director of research and chief economist at the Nuffield Trust, and report co-author, said the record low of satisfaction with individual services was “very striking”.
“The fall in satisfaction is widespread across all age groups and income groups, with political party support having no bearing,” he said.
These findings are hardly surprising. In March 2020, the NHS became the Covid Health Service, almost overnight.
Millions of people had treatment suspended temporarily or permanently. How many died as a direct result of that decision? We may never know, but I suspect the number will be far higher than the fictional covid-19 death toll.
Two years on and it’s still very difficult to obtain an appointment to see your GP. My own surgery continues to prioritise virtual appointments.
I run past it most days. Pre-scamdemic the car park would always be full. It was a very busy surgery.
These days there are never more than a handful of cars.
It is my opinion that the virus was the excuse to transform healthcare not just in the UK, but globally. Governments were talking about a move to virtual consultations and online appointments long before covid.
For years now, I’ve been reading articles in The Times and The Telegraph about how in future, Artificial Intelligence will be used to help diagnose patients and recommend appropriate treatments. That was always the agenda.
Covid has simply expedited it.
