Commercial out-of-hours care ‘delivers lower patient satisfaction’

providers are generally less satisfied than those supported by the NHS.

The University of Exeter Medical School research analysed results from more than 80,000 eligible patients who responded to the English General Practice Patient Survey and who reported their experience of using an out-of-hours service in the past six months.

Commercial providers scored lowest overall in terms of satisfaction, with NHS providers scoring highest by a small margin. Some ethnic minorities, particularly Asians, reported a poorer experience than white patients, especially when asked about timeliness of care.

The overall trend remained in place even after accounting for ethnicity, gender, age, deprivation, parent status and the ability to take time away from work to use daytime GP services.

Study leader Professor John Campbell of the University of Exeter Medical School said: "There are variations and examples of good practice among all providers, but the overall trend is that patients report less positive experiences with commercial providers, and we now need to understand why that is the case."

This comes after an Imperial College London study last week revealed that alternative providers of GP services generally perform worse than traditional practices.