Changes to the GP Patient Survey

1. Questionnaire changes

The 2024 survey was the start of a new time series for GPPS. It was therefore important that questionnaire changes were kept to a minimum for the 2025 survey to ensure that results could be compared across 2024 and 2025.

However, as in every year, the questionnaire content was reviewed to ensure it reflects the primary care context and priorities. This led to minor changes to the wording of some of the response options for two questions which has impacted trends. These changes have affected the comparability of these questions, even though the question wording remains the same. This is because it is difficult to determine whether a difference in results is caused by the change to the response options or a ‘real difference’.

Changes were made to the following questions:

Q9 'On that occasion, what was your main reason for trying to contact your GP practice?'

• The 2024 response option ‘Ask for help with an administrative request (for example, getting a fit note or updating contact details)’ was split into two new responses (‘Make an administrative request (for example, updating contact details or personal information)’ and ‘Get help with a fit note or any other medical evidence (for example, for benefit claims or background medical checks)’). This was designed to capture differences between tasks which could be completed by practice staff and those which need a GP or other healthcare professional.

• The 2024 response options ‘Get advice or treatment from a healthcare professional for a new health issue’ and ‘Get advice or treatment from a healthcare professional for an existing health issue’ had the words ‘new’ and ‘existing’ changed to bold to help differentiate between them.

• Due to a high level of multi-coding on the paper questionnaire, for this single code question, the instruction (‘If more than one of these applies to you, please put an ✗ in the box next to the main one only’), was shortened to ‘Please put an ✗ next to the main one only’ to make this clearer.

• As a result of these changes, trend data is not presented for this question.

Q39 'Which of the following long-term conditions or illnesses do you have?'

• The 2024 response option ‘Joint problem, such as arthritis’ was changed to ‘Arthritis or problem with your back or joints’ in 2025. This was to better capture the full range of musculoskeletal conditions, including back pain which contributes most to disability adjusted life year measurements and is one of the commonest causes of loss of work. This response option was also moved to the top of the list of response options, due to the list being organised in alphabetical order.

• Following data analysis, trends are not presented for 'Arthritis or problem with your back or joints' and the 2024 response option ('Joint problem, such as arthritis') as these are not directly comparable.

In addition to these changes, the colour of the routing arrows and instructions on the paper questionnaire were changed from blue to black font to help with navigation.

All these changes were cognitively tested with patients and reviewed by the Plain English Campaign.

The 2025 questionnaire is available on the website here.

Online only questions

In addition to the core (online and paper) questionnaire, a small number of additional questions were added to the online version of the survey. These included:

• Vaping behaviour (added to the online survey in 2024, and remained in the 2025 survey).

• Questions on the NHS Accessible Information Standard (new for the 2025 survey).

• Permission for recontact (new for the 2025 survey). General recontact permission for NHS England to find out more about specific healthcare experiences and permission for ONS to recontact carers.

These questions were developed by Ipsos and NHS England, cognitively tested with patients and reviewed by the Plain English Campaign. The accessible information questions were also reviewed by NHS lived experience partners.

It was not possible to include these questions in the paper questionnaire due to space constraints. However, given the nature of the questions, anyone requesting an accessible version of the paper questionnaire (large print or Braille) was also sent these questions (including the general recontact question only). They were also asked of anyone taking part with Helpline support.

The inclusion of online-only questions is a new development for GPPS. As such, these results, where published, are labelled as ‘official statistics in development’, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Please share any feedback on the online-only questions with: GPPatientSurvey@ipsos.com.

Accessible Information Standard

The next few questions are about communication and getting information from healthcare professionals in a way you can understand. For example, you may need help if you are: A person with a learning disability Deaf Blind, or Have hearing or sight loss   Q65 Do you find it difficult to see, hear, speak, read or understand what is being said to you? Yes No I don't know I would prefer not to say   Q66 Have you been asked by someone who works at your practice about how you prefer to be given information or communicate? For example, you may need information in a different format, such as the following: Yes No I can't remember   Q67 Did your GP or practice make a record in your medical notes of how you want to be given information or communicate? Yes No I don't know   Q68 How often do you get the help you want from staff at your GP practice to communicate and understand the information you are given? Always or almost always A lot of the time Sometimes Never or almost never I can’t remember

2. Methodology changes 

Sampling strategy

The 2025 survey used the same sampling approach as the 2024 survey.

Mailing strategy

There was a change to the mailing strategy for the 2025 survey. An additional SMS reminder was sent to all non-respondents after the third SMS reminder mailing to encourage as many responses as possible.

Ipsos and NHS England have also trialled several experiments on a sub-sample of survey respondents this year. These experiments tested contacting people in different ways including replacing the final paper mailing with an e-letter as well as using email and branded messaging to improve data quality and save costs.

More details of these experiments, and copies of the materials used for 2025 fieldwork, can be found in the 2025 technical annex.

3. Reporting 

Each year the reporting outputs are reviewed based on feedback from users and against the NHS Information Standards and other government guidance for publishing statistical publications.

In 2025 the following changes have been made to the reporting outputs:

• Publication of a regional csv data file, to support users with regional level analysis.

• A guidance sheet has been added to the Excel reports for further explanations about the data.

• An infographic slide has been added to the ICS slide packs at the request of ICS representatives.

• A separate weight has been used for the online-only questions to account for the likelihood of a patient responding to the survey online, rather than via the paper questionnaire. More information on this is available in the 2025 technical annex.

4. Organisational changes

Organisational changes reference changes to NHS organisational structures as well as detailing known changes in GP practice alignment to ICSs (as of April of each year). Published data is presented under the organisation name that was current at the end of fieldwork, April 2025.

Practice level ICS changes

GP practice information is taken from the NHS Digital Organisation Data Service “epraccur” reference file. In cases where practices have closed before the implementation of higher geography changes, the file can map practices to organisations (e.g. regions and ICSs) that no longer exist. Where this is the case, the ICS and region for these practices is updated to reflect the current NHS commissioning structures, as of April in the relevant survey year.

This year there have been no changes to ICS level boundaries, and all practices continue to be aligned with the same ICS.