Health and Care Experience Survey 2025 to 2026: Technical Report

Survey Response

Response rates

The response rate is calculated as the number of forms returned as a percentage of the number of survey invite letters sent out.

In total, out of an initial sample of 492,976 individuals, we sent out 491,243 survey packs, after excluding people as a result of death checks or for administrative reasons, such as having an incomplete address. We received 94,026 completed surveys back, giving an overall response rate of 19%. This is slightly lower than the response rate achieved in the 2023 to 2024 survey (20%).

The number of people on the CHI database is larger than the Scottish population. This is due to list size inflation caused by factors such as people not de-registering with their GP after moving outwith the UK or not registering with a new GP if moving within the UK. For example, students moving from Scotland. It is not possible to identify these people when selecting the sample and it’s unlikely that the survey pack will reach them if they are sampled.

As described in the sample design section of this report, the number of people sampled in each GP practice is adjusted upwards based on the response rate of the previous survey. This means that we are oversampling areas with a low response rate.

The response rate has been broken down by age, sex, deprivation level, Urban / Rural location, list size of the general practice and Health and Social Care Partnership.

Many of these differences were also evident in previous surveys, and were taken into account when the sample sizes were calculated – see Section 4 on Sample Design for more information about this.

Response Rate by Age Group

The response rate increases with people’s age (Table 2). It was the highest in the 65+ age group (40%) and the lowest among the youngest group aged 17-34 (7%).

Response rates increased with age.

Table 2: The number of forms sent out, the number of responses received and the response rate, by age group.

Response Rate by Sex

Table 3 shows that the response rate was higher for females (21%) than it was for males (17%). Sex is a variable linked from CHI records.

Females have a higher response rate than males.

Table 3: The number of forms sent out, the number of responses received and the response rate, by sex.

Response Rate by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation Quintile

Those who were sent a survey were assigned to a deprivation quintile based on their postcode using the 2020 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).This is a relative measure of deprivation. If an area is identified as ‘deprived’, this can relate to people having a low income, but it can also mean fewer resources or opportunities.

The response rate was lower for people living in more deprived areas (Table 4), ranging from 12% for people living in the most deprived areas to 25% for people living in the least deprived areas.

People living in more deprived areas are less likely to respond to the survey.

Table 4: The number of forms sent out, the number of responses received and the response rate, by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile.

Response Rate by Urban / Rural Classification

Respondents were assigned to an Urban / Rural category based on their postcode, using the Scottish Government’s 2016 six-fold Urban / Rural classification. This classification is based on settlement size and drive time to an urban area.

The response rate was higher among people living in rural areas, and lower among people living in urban areas. It ranged from 15% for people living in large urban areas to 30% for people living in remote rural areas (Table 5).

The response rate is lower among people living in urban areas.

Table 5: The number of forms sent out, the number of responses received and the response rate, by six-fold Urban / Rural Classification.

Response Rates by list size of the general practice

The list size is the number of patients registered at each general practice. Response rates are similar among people registered with general practices of different list sizes (Table 6).

There was little difference in the response rate by General Practice list size
Table 6: The number of forms sent out, the number of responses received and the response rate, by General Practice list size.

Response rate by Health and Social Care Partnership

Response rates by the Health and Social Care Partnership of the general practice are shown in Table 7. The highest response rate was 30%, achieved in Orkney. The lowest response rate was for Glasgow City at 12%.

Orkney Health and Social Care Partnership has the highest response rate

Table 7: Response rate by Health and Social Care Partnership.

Method of Response

Of the 94,026 respondents, 60% completed the survey online and 40% sent their surveys back by post.

Compared with the 2023 to 2024, the proportion of people completing the survey online has increased (56 per cent in 2023 to 2024) and the proportion of people completing a paper questionnaire and sending it back by post has decreased (43 per cent in 2023 to 2024).

157 respondents completed the survey via the telephone and 10 completed the survey via the language line, which is slightly lower than the previous round of the survey.

Table 8 below shows the number of responses and percentage of respondents by methods of response for the latest round of the survey.

Most respondents completed the survey online.

Table 8: The number of questionnaires completed by mode of response.