Exploring the impact of the national extended access scheme on patient experience of and satisfaction with general practice: an observational study using the English GP Patient Survey

Patrick Burch; William Whittaker

doi:10.3399/BJGPO.2022.0013

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Figure 1. Timeline showing data collection points. GPPS = GP Patient Survey.
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Figure 2. Number of extended access days offered by practices

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Table 1. Mean values for outcome variables for all practices included in the model (n = 5829)

Question and variables	Mean 2018, %	Mean 2019, %	Difference, %
How often do you see or speak to your preferred GP when you would like to?^a ‘Always or almost always‘ or ‘A lot of the time‘	51.8	49.6	–2.2^b
How satisfied are you with the general practice appointment times that are available to you? ‘Very satisfied‘ or ‘Fairly satisfied‘	67.6	66.5	–1.1^b
Overall, how would you describe your experience of your GP practice? ‘Very good’ or ‘Fairly good‘	84.6	83.9	–0.7^b

^aThis was asked to those patients with a preferred GP. ^b P<0.05

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Table 2. Source and average values for explanatory variables used in the analyses

Category	Source	Mean 2018	Mean 2019	Combined means
Extended access days offered, n	NHS England – practice submitted data	3.46	4.41	3.94
Patients registered with practice, n	GPPS	8909	8640	8775
Male patients registered with practice, %	GPPS	49.2	49.2	49.2
Prevalence of long-term conditions, %	GPPS	51.3	52.4	51.8
FTE GPs per 1000 patients, n	NHS Digital and GPPS	0.54	0.50	0.52
GPs per FTE GPs, n	NHS Digital	1.38	1.39	1.38
Patients aged <5 years, %	NHS Digital	5.5	5.6	5.6
Percentage of patients aged >75 years, %	NHS Digital	8.0	7.8	7.9

FTQ = full-time equivalent. GPPS = GP Patient Survey.

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Table 3. Type or location of external access offered by practices

Category	March 2017, % (n)	March 2018, % (n)
Practices with no extended access	11.7 (684)	10.8 (631)
Practices with only internal extended access	53.0 (3091)	33.3 (1941)
Practices with only external extended access	6.4 (375)	12.1 (704)
Practices with both internal and external extended access	28.7 (1675)	43.8 (2553)

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Table 4. Regression outputs. N = 5829 practices. Estimates are from linear regression models and include practice fixed effects (not reported), standard errors are robust to heteroscedasticity.

Category	Percentage of patients satisfied with access	Percentage of patients able to speak to preferred GP	Percentage of patients satisfied with overall experience
Category	Beta (95% CI)	Beta (95% CI)	Beta (95% CI)
Number of extended access days	0.0002(–0.0008 to 0.001)	0.00003(–0.001 to 0.001)	–0.0006(–0.001 to –0.0001)
Percentage of male patients	–0.17(–0.051 to 0.16)	0.046^a(0.002 to 0.90)	–0.020(–0.046 to 0.007)
Number of thousand patients	–0.002^a(–0.005 to –0.002)	–0.003^a(–0.005 to –0.0008)	–0.003^a(–0.004 to –0.0009)
FTE GPs per thousand patients	0.006(–0.011 to 0.023)	0.018(–0.002 to 0.038)	0.012(–0.0003 to 0.024)
Percentage of patients aged <5 years	0.007(–0.001 to 0.016)	0.008(–0.004 to 0.020)	0.0036(–0.003 to 0.010)
Percentage of patients aged >75 years	–0.002(–0.011 to 0.006)	–0.0004(–0.001 to 0.011)	–0.002(–0.008 to 0.005)
Percentage of patients with long-term conditions	0.023(–0.006 to 0.052)	0.056^a(0.017 to 0.095)	0.010(–0.013 to 0.032)
Year (2019)	–0.012^a(–0.015 to –0.009)	–0.022^a(–0.026 to –0.018)	–0.006^a(–0.009 to 0.004)

^aP<0.05. FTE = full-time equivalent.

Supplementary Data

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