New Labour NHS Marketisation: Category Error?

Two members of the LoL household were chosen to take part in a recent and ongoing Ipsos MORI poll "The GP Patient Survey" subtitled "Your Doctor, Your Experience, Your Say".

We have a truly excellent family GP with routine appointments available on around 4 weeks notice, with our own GP adding extra slots to fit in patients who have a more urgent requirement, and a daily drop in where patients are signed in for a slot between 8am and 9am and are seen the same morning in booked appointments. There are several walk in centres available within a few miles.

When Ipsos MORI ask us about dawn opening, lunch opening, evening opening, Saturday opening, and Sunday opening (Question 9b) - which we believe is the crux of the survey - we think they have made a serious Category Error.

Our family visit our GP between us quite regularly and we sometimes have to visit in work or school time. Employers and teachers are understanding and helpful. But pushing GPs towards supermarket hours would be very foolhardy. This is a public service, used only occasionally by most, and if a majority claim they need dawn, evening or weekend service then I believe it would be quite wrong to require doctors to change or extend their hours. I hope we patients vote it down.

If this was to be done it should have been resolved at the same time as the last pay round.