Friends & Family Test

From December 2014, it is a contractual requirement that all GP Practices undertake the NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT).

What is the Friends and Family Test (FFT)?

The FFT is a feedback tool that supports the fundamental principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience that can be used to improve services. It is not a traditional survey, but a continuous feedback loop between patients and the practice.

The Primary FFT question simply asks patients…

‘We would like you to think about your recent experiences of our service.’

‘How likely are you to recommend our GP Surgery to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?’

·         Extremely likely
·         Likely
·         Neither likely nor unlikely
·         Unlikely
·         Extremely unlikely
·         Don’t know

This is followed up by a practice chosen question which includes a ‘free-text’ opportunity.

At no point will you be asked to give your personal details, all feedback for the FFT is completely anonymous.

How and when will the results of the Survey will be published?

From December 2014 the Practice is obliged to submit the answer to the primary FFT question only on a monthly basis to NHS England. NHS England will also publish the results on the NHS Choices website.

The Practice will also publish the answers to the primary FFT question and our follow up question including the free text comments, providing the patient has not opted out of their free text comment being published, also on a monthly basis. We will be publishing these results on the Practice Website.

When can patients complete the Survey?

All patients will have the opportunity to provide feedback as often as they wish. As a patient you do not have to give us feedback after every contact with the Surgery but are more than welcome to do so if you would like to.

Giving us feedback is not just limited to the occasions when you have a seen a GP at the Surgery. You are welcome to give us feedback on a range of different contacts including…

·   Home visits
·   Telephone appointments
·   Nurse appointments
·   Your experience with reception, including getting an appointment, ordering/collecting your repeat prescription, calling for information etc.

How can patients complete the Survey?

You can complete the survey in three ways…

1. You can complete the survey by clicking here.

2. Replying to an automated text message sent by the Surgery.

3. If you prefer pen and paper then surveys are available from our main, ground floor waiting area, along with a locked box where you can post your completed survey.

We would appreciate it if as many patients as possible complete the survey online as result collation is easier and quicker this way, although we do understand this is not possible for everyone.

The Survey is only short so how can this give a good over-all view of how the Practice is performing?

The FFT has a very specific aim, which is to gather useful feedback from people who use services that can be fed directly to the staff that provide their care, in a simple format, in near real time. Other longer annual surveys tend to give an overall opinion of the practice over a period of time, whereas this survey looks at individual, current experiences.

The practice continues to receive feedback from a much more in-depth survey which is sent biannually by NHS England to a large group of randomly selected patients. Please do complete the survey if you receive one directly from NHS England.

Receiving Good and Bad feedback

We like to hear both. It’s important that we know when we are not doing well as this prompts us to look at where we are going wrong and what we can do to improve our services to patients.

However, we know, from what patients often tell us in passing, that most of the time we are getting it right. We would like to hear this feedback on the FFT as well. Primarily because positive feedback is just as important to NHS England as negative feedback but also because it’s morale boosting at the end of a busy day to hear about how well we have done! Please do take the time to tell us, by completing the survey, when you are happy with your care as sadly it is in our nature to only take the time to give feedback when we’re disappointed!

Latest Results

To view the FFT results for January/February 2020, please click here.

Previous Results