Public satisfaction with the NHS and primary care collapsed in the wake of pandemic restrictions on services, according to a bleak analysis published today.

Practices services, a frequent target for complaint, now for the first time attract more dissatisfaction than satisfaction – in spite of very heavy public use, according to the data from last year. The Royal College of GPs said it was “extremely disappointed and saddened” at the findings, which also found that 86% of people had contact with general practice during the year.

The findings are released today by The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust and are based on the 2021 British Social Attitudes survey, carried out in September and October last year. Public satisfaction with how the health service runs is now at 36%, representing a fall of 17 percentage points since 2020, and is the lowest since 1997. Individual NHS services also saw record falls in satisfaction. The low satisfaction rates applied across ages, income groups, sexes and supporters of different political parties. Particular concerns were observed over long waiting times, NHS staff shortages, and inadequate government funding. However, 94% of respondents still believe that the NHS should be free of charge when needed, 86% believe it should be primarily funded through taxation, and 84% believe it should be available to everyone.

Professor John Appleby of the Nuffield Trust commented: “On top of the dramatic fall in overall public satisfaction with the NHS and care services, it is really very striking that we are seeing record low levels of satisfaction with individual health care services. Against a backdrop of record waiting lists for surgery, disruption to services and difficulties getting appointments with a GP, people are concerned about what the NHS can deliver. We know that the NHS and social care services face a long and difficult journey to recover performance, and now public satisfaction is rapidly falling too.”

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Martin Marshall said: “We are extremely disappointed and saddened by these findings, which reflect a service working under crippling staffing and resource pressures following the pandemic, which has pushed general practice, and the wider NHS, to its limits.Hardworking GPs have been at the forefront of delivering safe and appropriate care throughout the pandemic, ensuring patients received care and services when many other parts of the NHS had to severely limit access or shut down.

“GPs and patients want the same thing, and we share patients’ concerns about the difficulties they face in accessing GP appointments. It is vital that today’s report is not used as another opportunity to denigrate and demoralise hardworking GP teams, but that these findings serve as a wake-up call to Government and policy makers on the need for urgent action to boost the GP workforce so that there are enough GPs and practice team members to deliver safe, timely and appropriate care to all patients. General practice was stretched to its limits before the pandemic, but the intense workload and workforce pressures have been exacerbated by the crisis.”

British Medical Association chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said the findings were “unsurprising”. He said: “The truth is that the NHS in England has been underfunded for so long and we went into the pandemic frighteningly ill-prepared for what was to come. Now staff morale is at an all-time low with doctors leaving the NHS every day. Commitments made by the UK Government, like the recruitment of more GPs, are routinely missed, while at the same time rejecting demands from the House of Lords and over 100 medical organisations for transparent workforce planning.”