ONS publishes Wave 28 of Health Insight Survey on NHS service experiences

The Office for National Statistics has released its latest dataset tracking how people in England experience GP services, hospital waiting lists, dentistry, community health and pharmacy care.

Around 100,000 people aged 16 and over in England feed into the Health Insight Survey, which the ONS conducts on behalf of NHS England. Wave 28 of the dataset was released on 8 October 2026 — the latest in a series that has run since the survey launched in July 2024, with updates issued roughly every four weeks.

The survey covers five areas: contacting and using local GP practices, NHS hospital waiting lists, community health services, dental care and pharmacy services. It’s designed to track how access to those services shifts over time and across different regions and demographic groups.

One caveat worth keeping in mind: the ONS classifies the results as official statistics in development, and the data is self-reported through an online survey. That means the figures reflect what respondents say about their experiences — not independently audited service performance.

So the survey gives patients a structured channel to report what’s actually happening to them — whether that’s struggling to get a GP appointment or waiting on an NHS treatment list. But readers should weigh the findings alongside that methodological context.