Medway’s GP services are improving. Depending on where you live
We dig into the latest patient survey to see which Medway GP practices are improving and where patients are still struggling
Patients' experience of GP services across Medway is improving, but the average hides enormous differences between individual surgeries. We analysed the latest national patient survey to find out which practices patients rate most highly, where getting an appointment remains a struggle, and why living only a few miles apart can mean receiving a very different service.
Medway’s GP services are improving. Depending on where you live
On the face of it, patients’ experience of GP services in Medway is improving.
Across the area’s 32 GP practices, 64.6% of respondents to this year’s national GP Patient Survey described their overall experience as good. That is up from 61.9% last year.
Unfortunately, the improvement conceals rather more than it reveals.
At five surgeries in Rainham, more than nine in ten respondents reported a good overall experience. At three practices elsewhere in Medway, fewer than half said the same.
Maidstone Road Rainham Surgery recorded Medway’s highest score, with 94.8% rating their experience positively. At Thorndike Partnership in Rochester, the figure was 42.7%.
The practices are only a few miles apart. On the evidence of the survey, they might as well belong to different health systems.
Medway’s combined result also remains well behind the rest of England. Nationally, 76.7% of patients reported a good overall experience of their GP practice, leaving Medway 12 percentage points below the country as a whole.
The annual GP Patient Survey is carried out for NHS England and asks patients about contacting their surgery, obtaining appointments and what happens once they receive care.
Some 3,393 responses were received from patients registered with Medway practices during fieldwork between January and April. The results present a remarkably uneven picture of general practice across the towns.
The five highest overall experience scores all came from Rainham practices. Maidstone Road Rainham was narrowly ahead on 94.8%, followed by Pump Lane Surgery on 94.7%, Thames Avenue Surgery on 93.8%, Orchard Family Practice on 92.8% and Waltham Road Medical Centre on 91.2%.
The Glebe Family Practice in Gillingham came next on 89.9%, followed by Riverside Medical Practice in Halling on 88.3%.
The bottom of the table is more geographically dispersed.
Thorndike Partnership in Rochester recorded Medway’s lowest result on 42.7%. Reach Healthcare, which operates across Gillingham, Lordswood and Walderslade, was on 45.0%, while Woodlands Family Practice in Gillingham recorded 46.1%.
How did your GP practice perform?
Register for free to see the results for every Medway practice, where patients report the greatest problems getting through, and which surgeries have improved or fallen back since last year.
