Scottish Household Survey 2024: Satisfaction with Local Health Services and Sport and Leisure Facilities

Introduction

This publication contains the 2024 Scottish Household Survey results relating to satisfaction with local health services, satisfaction with local authority sport and leisure facilities, and being treated with dignity and respect by local health services. Results for other topics are available on the Scottish Household Survey results webpage.

The 2024 results are published as official statistics (see below) in line with the 2022 and 2023 results. This is in contrast to the 2020 and 2021 results, which were published as experimental statistics. This was due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in the 2020 and 2021 survey years having a different methodology, lower response rates, and a change in the profile of respondents compared to typical survey years. Data relating to 2020 and 2021 can be found in their respective key findings reports and supplementary documents.

In advance of the 2024 Scottish Household Survey, a questionnaire review was carried out, with the aim of shortening the interview from 1 hour to 45 minutes. Reducing the questionnaire length helps minimize the respondent burden, in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, increases the likelihood of respondents giving valid and reliable answers, and is likely to have a positive impact on response rates.

The principles that were applied during the review included that questions should be removed if the information they provided could be obtained from other sources or if their usefulness for informing policy decisions was not demonstrated. Additionally, annual questions should be changed to biennial, unless there is a clear, demonstrated need for annual data.

Following this review, it was decided that the questions on satisfaction with local health services and being treated with dignity and respect by local health services will not be asked in future surveys. The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey asks about overall satisfaction with the NHS in terms that are better understood by survey respondents, and the Health and Care Experience Survey is a more detailed source of information on people’s experiences of care from their GP practice, Out of Hours health care services and social care. The question asking about satisfaction with local authority sport and leisure facilities will continue to be asked annually.

Throughout this report, tables are referenced. These are published in Excel format as supporting documents to the report, and include specific results for groups in the population (e.g. urban and rural areas or Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation). Some of the differences between groups may be due to random sampling variation i.e. chance. Similarly, some apparent differences between 2023 and 2024 results may occur by chance. We use standard statistical tests of significance to determine the likelihood of differences being due to chance. When this report refers to differences between groups or years, these differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level unless explicitly stated otherwise. Some differences between groups in the Excel tables that appear large may not be mentioned in this report, because they are not statistically significant.

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.