ONS Publishes NHS Patient Experience Data for December 2025

The Office for National Statistics has released Health Insight Survey findings covering GP access, dentistry, pharmacy and NHS waiting lists across England for the period 9 to 31 December 2025.

The share of patients finding it difficult to contact their GP practice has fallen from 18.7 per cent in Wave 1 of the survey to 10.6 per cent by Wave 12, the figures show. That drop — nearly halving the proportion struggling to get through — is the headline movement in a dataset that ONS labels as official statistics in development, meaning it is published for public use but may still be subject to methodological refinement.

The Health Insight Survey, which started on 23 July 2024 and is funded by NHS England, collects self-reported patient experiences roughly every four weeks via an online questionnaire. It covers GP practice contact and access, NHS treatment waiting lists, community health services, dentistry and pharmacy. An earlier thematic analysis — covering data gathered between 24 June and 10 September 2025 — found that over 70 per cent of respondents reported a positive GP practice experience, compared with just under 10 per cent reporting a negative one.

Because the survey covers England as a whole, Kent and Medway residents are included in the pool — but no county-level or ICS breakdown appears in the ONS post or the underlying dataset as supplied. So while the national trend on GP contact difficulty will be broadly relevant to patients at surgeries across Kent, any local variation remains unverified.

The survey is separate from the GP Patient Survey, which NHS England also runs and which covers similar ground on GP access, pharmacy and NHS dentistry. Both feed into how NHS England assesses service access and patient experience, though neither replaces clinical outcome data.

Kent residents wanting figures specific to their area would need to look for a regional breakdown from NHS England or the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board, should one be published separately.