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Health Insight Survey: an introduction | Accessible slides

To celebrate a year of the Health Insight Survey, ONS ran a webinar in collaboration with NHS England to discuss the data, trends over time and future developments.

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Health Insight Survey (HIS): An introduction 5 November 2025
Before we start Recording Today’s webinar will be recorded. We’ll share the link after the event. Questions The MS Teams chat function has been disabled. Please submit questions to Slido.com #HIS
Agenda • Background, value and impact of HIS Andrew Laycock, Deputy Director of Insight in Primary Care, Community, Vaccinations & Screening, NHS England • Survey Design Ben Stewart, Health Insight Survey Design and Delivery Team, Office for National Statistics (ONS) • Key findings and emerging trends, including future developments Alison Judd, Health Insight Survey Analysis Team, Office for National Statistics (ONS) • Q&A Slido.com #HIS
Slido.com #HIS Background and impact of HIS
Background • Set up in 2024 to provide more regular, granular insight into patient experience. • It has rapidly become a key source for informing various briefings and critical plans and commitments • Informs regular briefings to the Secretary of State • Supports delivery and monitoring of critical plans and commitments including: the Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care (PCARP), the 10 Year Plan for Health, the Plan to Reform Elective Care, The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework 2026/27 to 2028/29. • Key achievements in the first year: • Digital recruitment approach: HIS is the first patient experience survey using NHS Notify to recruit new survey participants • Regular sample boosts: Significantly grown the sample, 15,071 new participants added in Wave 14 (Sep 2025), and a further 24,733 in Wave 17 (to be published in Dec 25). • The first national survey to capture patient experience of community health services. • Added insight into the data through a series of statistical bulletins
Value and impact of HIS • Opportunity for patients to offer regular feedback about their experiences of the NHS, to help improve services in their area • Covers a wide range of healthcare settings across England – allowing comparable assessment of a variety of NHS services within one geography. • Contributes to the NHS 10-Year 'Fit for the Future’ Plan: • Supports its central promise of “putting power in patients’ hands’“, enabling patient decision-making and drives up quality of care • Supports shift from hospital to the community • Monitoring national commitments to improve primary care - whether people are being offered choice of hospital following referral from their GP, ease of GP access, extent to which patients are offered face-to-face appointments and appointments with their preferred healthcare professionals. • Allows regions and ICSs to measure performance over time, identify outliers and target support/intervention
Slido.com #HIS Survey Design
Slido.com #HIS Health Insight Survey Design • The Health Insight Survey (HIS) began in July 2024. • It collects data from those aged 16 and over on individuals’ self-reported experiences of NHS healthcare services in England. • Quick and agile survey for our respondents to provide a regular snapshot of their NHS healthcare experiences. • Online survey sent to respondents every 4 weeks. • The most recent Wave 15 collected data from 78,000 respondents.
Slido.com #HIS Question topics and design Currently in the survey: GP Practice experience Elective hospital waiting list experience Community health services Dental care services Pharmacies Topics to be added to the survey: • Waiting lists for community health services • Care coordination Ensure quality data collection through our Respondent Centred Design approach where questions are designed based on the needs of our respondents. For example, we cognitively test all questions that go on the survey.
Slido.com #HIS How we invite and contact respondents To hear from more people, we integrated the Personal Demographic Service (PDS). • This has brought 4 key benefits: • Target underrepresented groups • Invites sent electronically • Invites sent to named individuals • Reduced cost Our approach is entirely digital • We contact respondents in the first instance via email • If the email is not delivered, a second contact attempt is made via text Communications are delivered through NHS Notify. Future development work is focused on integrating the NHS App.
Slido.com #HIS Key findings and emerging trends
Response rate • In Wave 15 (August/September 2025), the total number of respondents was 78,565 • There is a natural attrition over time, as people drop off due to a variety of reasons. • From 25/26 we’ve introduced quarterly sample boosts to counter this attrition. This has added 15,071 new participants in Wave 14 (Sep 2025), and a 24,733 in Wave 17 (to be published in Dec 25).This brings the total panel to approx. 144,000 participants. • The next sample boost is scheduled to take place in December. Source: Health Insight Survey
Slido.com #HIS Thinking of the last time you contacted your GP practice, how did you make contact? • Sustained increase in online contact and decrease in telephone contact since July 2024. • Over 75’s were least likely to make contact online (32.3%) and most likely to make contact in person (21.9%). • Those in the 25 to 34 age group were most likely to make contact by phone (49%) N = 35,952 Source: Health Insight Survey
How easy or difficult was it to make contact with your GP practice? • Overall, 74.3% of participants described their contact as Easy in Wave 15 (August/September 2025). This shows an upward trend from the 60.9% in Wave 1 (July/August 2024). • Online contact and in person contact consistently described as ‘easiest’ contact method (78% and 76.1% respectively). • Telephone contact is less likely to be described as ‘easy’ (70%). N=35,952 Source: Health Insight Survey
Slido.com #HIS Overall, how would you describe your experience of your GP practice? • There was a reported increase in the percentage describing their experience as good from 67.4 in Wave 1 (July/August 2024) to 74.8 in wave 7, however there has been no significant change in the proportion describing their experience as good since Wave 7 (January 2025). • Those in the older age groups (65 to 74, 75+) are significantly more likely to describe their experience as "Good", compared to the average. Asked to respondents who successfully made contact with their GP (N=38,084) Source: Health Insight Survey
Slido.com #HIS Were you able to see or speak to your preferred healthcare professional? • 66.2% of adults who indicated they had a preferred health care professional, reported that they were able to see their preferred healthcare professional.​ • In Wave 13 (June/July 2025) an additional response option was added: participants are now able to answer that they did not need to see their preferred healthcare professional. Note: Asked to respondents who were given a face-to-face appointment, a video call appointment or a call-back appointment and who have a preferred healthcare professional (N= 5,958) Source: Health Insight Survey
How satisfied were you with the NHS dental care you received? • Overall satisfaction with NHS dental treatment has been high and stable throughout the course of the survey, with 90.9% in W15 (August/September 2025). • Wave 15 saw the joint highest recorded since the survey began, matching the satisfaction levels seen in Wave 7 and Wave 10. • Those in the youngest age group (16-24) were significantly more likely to be "Dissatisfied" with their dental care compared to the average Asked to respondents who have reported having an NHS dentist appointment in the last 28 days and have an NHS dentist. N= 6,617 Source: Health Insight Survey
In the last 28 days, have you had any problems getting an NHS prescription at a pharmacy? • Since Wave 1 (July/August 24), there has been a significant increase in the proportion of people who did not have a problem getting an NHS prescription at a pharmacy. • This proportion rose from 79.9% in Wave 1 to 88.4% in Wave 15 (August/September 2025). • The most common issue faced was having to return to the same pharmacy on a different occasion to get the prescription, which affected 8.3% of respondents. • N=53,548 Source: Health Insight Survey
How good or poor would you rate your overall experience of waiting for your NHS hospital appointment? • In Wave 15 (August/September 2025), 45.1% described their overall experience of their wait as poor. This has remained relatively stable since the question was introduced in Wave 13. • For adults who had a "poor" overall experience of waiting, other than shorter waiting times, the most common response about what could improve experience was "more regular updates about wait” (64.6% in Wave 14) and confirmation of place on a waiting list (50.9%). Based on analysis presented in the September 25 statistical bulletin on the questions introduced in Wave 13. Source: Health Insight Survey
Community Health Services: Overall, how would you describe your experience at your last appointment? • In Wave 15 (August/September 2025), the percentage of people describing their experience with a CHS appointment as good was 85.5% • The Rehabilitation service had the highest percentage of people describing their experience as good 96.1%. • There was significant variation across service lines, with the Urgent community response service having the lowest good rate 71.5%. Questions introduced in Wave 13 (June/July 2025). N=10,736 CHS Service % Good Sample Size Rehabilitation service 96.1 109 District or community nursing service 90.3 883 Cardiac service 90.2 606 Respiratory service 89.5 668 Speech and language therapy service 89.5 65 Podiatry service 89.2 555 Physiotherapy service 86.6 2,384 All 85.5 10,736 Diabetes service 85.4 1,184 Other service 85.1 3,083 Continence service 80.4 174 Musculoskeletal service 73.2 946 Urgent community response service 71.5 79 Source: Health Insight Survey
Slido.com #HIS Comparing reported experience between sectors Positive overall experience most likely to be reported for dentistry, pharmacy and CHS (Community Health Service). Positive experience lowest for those on an NHS Hospital waiting list. Source: Health Insight Survey
Slido.com #HIS Future Developments
Slido.com #HIS Next Steps • Attrition and sample representativeness – We are oversampling groups that are underrepresented when carrying out the boosts to try and address this.​ • New questions on Community Health Service waiting list experience to be added from Wave 18 (scheduled for publication in January 2026)​ • Wave 16 data will be published tomorrow (6th November) ​ • Testing integrating with the NHS App to contact participants
Questions health.insights@ons.gov.uk Slido.com #HIS
Audience Q&A The Slido app must be installed on every computer you’re presenting from D o n o t e d i t H o w t o c h a n g e t h e d e s i g n
Slido.com #HIS Our publications • About the Health Insight Survey • Experiences of NHS healthcare services in England dataset – underlying data • Experiences of NHS healthcare services in England QMI – further information on Quality and Methods Contact us: health.insights@ons.gov.uk • Let us know how you are using the data • Get in touch with any feedback • Let us know if you'd like to hear more