The annual British Social Attitudes survey has revealed that satisfaction with the NHS is at the lowest level recorded since the survey began in 1983. This is the case across every service and within all demographics and socio-economic groups.
The report based on the British Social Attitudes survey explores public satisfaction with the NHS and social care. The report assesses how views towards the NHS and social care have changed over time and public opinion on NHS priorities and funding in the context of prominent national debate about taxation and healthcare spending.
In 2023, fewer than 1 in 4 (24 per cent of people) were satisfied with the NHS, which is a drop of 29 percentage points since 2020.
The main reasons for discontent were GP and hospital appointment waiting times (71 per cent), staff shortages (54 per cent), and insufficient government spending (47 per cent).
Satisfaction with GP services and NHS dentistry were the biggest drops, falling to record lows of 34 per cent and 24 per cent respectively. Inpatient and outpatient were the highest-rated NHS services.
84 per cent of respondents believed that the NHS has a major or severe funding problem, and when asked about about government choices on tax and NHS spending, most chose to increase taxes and spend more on the NHS (48 per cent).
Respondents said that the most important priorities for the NHS were 'making it easier to get a GP appointment' (52 per cent) and 'increasing the number of staff in the NHS' (51 per cent).
At the same time, satisfaction with social care is 13 per cent, which is lower than that with the NHS overall or with any of the individual NHS services in question. This dissatisfaction was mostly attributed to inadequate pay, working conditions and training for workers (57 per cent), closely followed by people not receiving all the social care they need (56 per cent) and insufficient support for unpaid carers (49 per cent).
Responding to the report, Chris Hopson, chief strategy officer at NHS England, said: “Whilst these findings reflect the sustained pressure and disruption facing NHS services last Autumn, it is extremely welcome to once again see overwhelming public support for the founding principles of the NHS.
“Over the last 12 months as the NHS has continued to recover from the pandemic, frontline services have responded to significant increases in demand, with October seeing the most A&E admissions since January 2020 and GP teams delivering 53 million more appointments last year compared to pre-pandemic levels. Coupled with the impacts of a year of strike action, this has affected the experiences of some patients, which we know has been very frustrating.
“However, thanks to the hard work of staff, NHS teams have delivered more elective activity in 2023 than in any other year since the start of the pandemic, with over 17.3 million people treated. It is also encouraging to see a slight increase in public satisfaction with emergency care services over the surveyed period.
“While there is still much more to do, the NHS’s plans to recover access to emergency, primary and dental care and reduce cancer, ambulance and elective waiting times are helping the NHS to deliver improved care for patients.”
