Reasons for public dissatisfaction with NHS services in the United Kingdom 2023

In 2023, a survey in the UK revealed the problem which was causing the most dissatisfaction among users of the NHS was the length of time it takes to get a GP or hospital appointment with 71 percent of respondents choosing this reason. A further 54 percent of responses mentioned the lack of NHS staff as a reason for their dissatisfaction with NHS. 

Waiting times increasing

In every month in 2023 in England, less than 60 percent of patients who attended an A&E department were seen within four hours. This is well below the NHS’s target that 95 percent of attendees to A&E should be seen within four hours. Since 2011, the share of patients seen within four hours has been declining. In addition, since 2016 there has been an overall marked increase in examples of patients waiting for more than twelve hours at A&E to be admitted, with a slight decline on the previous two years.  

Increased strain on General Practices

The average number of patients per GP practice in the UK has been increasing over the last ten years, a possible reason for increased waiting times and the perceived lack of NHS staff. In 2008, there were under 6.4 thousand patients per practice in the UK, by 2017 this had increased to over 7.6 thousand per general practice.