Health and Care Experience Survey 2025 to 2026: National Report

Key points

Experience of GP Practice and Out of Hours healthcare:

• 71% of people rated the overall experience of their GP Practice as “good” or “excellent”: this is 2 percentage points higher than in 2023 to 2024 (69%), but below pre-pandemic levels of 79% in 2019 to 2020
• 78% of people found it “very easy” or “fairly easy” to contact their GP Practice in the way that they wanted: this is a higher percentage compared with 2023 to 2024 (76%), but a lower percentage compared to 2019 to 2020 (85%)
• Of those who were offered an appointment at their GP Practice, 72% received a face-to-face appointment: this is a higher percentage compared with 2023 to 2024 (62%), but it is lower compared with 2019 to 2020 (87%)
• 72% of people rated their overall experience of Out of Hours healthcare as good or excellent: this is similar to 2023 to 2024 (73%), but it’s lower than the pre-pandemic level of 79% (2019 to 2020).

Experience of help, care and support:

• 12% of people received help or support with everyday living, 4% did not have help but felt they needed it, and 84% did not need help: this is similar to 2023 to 2024
• 64% of people rated their help, care or support services as “good” or “excellent”: this percentage is similar to 2023 to 2024 (63%)
• 65% felt they were supported to live as independently as possible: this is similar to 2023 to 2024 (64%).

Experience of caring responsibilities:

• 61% of carers felt they had a good balance between caring and other things in their life: this is continuing a downwards trend since 2017 to 2018
• 32% of people felt supported to continue caring: this is slightly higher compared with 2023 to 2024 (31%), but lower than the pre-pandemic level of 34% (2019 to 2020).