National Health and Care Experience Survey results published

The survey asked about people's experiences of accessing and using local health services and receiving support.

The Scottish Government has published the results of the Health and Care Experience Survey 2023/24. The survey asked about people’s experiences of accessing and using their local healthcare services, receiving support and caring responsibilities. The survey runs every two years as part of the Scottish Care Experience Survey Programme and the results help inform improvements to service planning and delivery at the local and national levels. It received more than 107,000 responses from people in Scotland aged 17 and over who are registered with a General Practice. 

Below are some highlights from the survey results. 

Care, support and help with everyday living 

• Choice and control: Less than a quarter of people (22%) said that they were offered a choice regarding how their help and support was arranged and got their preference. Nearly a third (30%) said they were not offered any choices in how their care was arranged. 
• Experiences of care services: Around three-quarters of respondents reported that they felt treated with dignity and respect and two-thirds said they were supported to live as independently as possible, but only about half said that they were aware of the help, care and support options available to them. 
• Quality: Nearly two-thirds of people rated their care and support as good or excellent, but 16% said their care service was poor or very poor. 
• Unmet need: Almost one in three respondents not receiving care but who feel they need support weren’t sure if they were eligible, and 23% did not know how or where to ask for help. 

Carers 

• Support for carers: 14% of carers said they did not receive support for their caring role but felt they needed some help, while 4% received support but felt that they needed more. 13% had help from a carer centre or local organisation. 37% of carers said they get help from family, friends or neighbours. 
• Assessments: Only 6% of carers said they had received an assessment or written plan for their caring role. 
• Impact: Nearly two-thirds of carers felt they had a good balance between their caring role and other aspects of life, but only 31% felt supported to continue caring. Only one-quarter of people felt local services were well coordinated for those they look after. 

General Practice 

• Experience: 69% of respondents said they had positive experiences of their General Practice, which is a slight increase from 2021/22, but still remains lower than in 2019/20 (79%). 
• Contact: The proportion of people who found it easy or very easy to contact their GP in the way they wanted has declined by more than 10% since 2017/18. 
• Mental health: Around a third of respondents rated arrangements to speak to a mental health professional as poor or very poor. 
• Nurses: The percentage of nurses who gave treatment or advice at respondents’ last consultations increased from 20% in 2019/20 to 25% in 2023/24. 

• Person centred care: A majority of participants felt they understood the information they received (91%), were treated with dignity and respect (88%), and able to ask questions (88%). However, more than 10% of people reported that their healthcare professional did not know their medical history, that their treatment or care was not well coordinated and that staff had not helped them to feel in control of their treatment or care. 

The full report can be found on the Scottish Government website. 

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