Easier GP Access Continues To Be Public’s Top Priority For The NHS
New polling from the Health Foundation and Ipsos has highlighted that the public’s top priority for the NHS is making it easier to get GP appointments.
The survey, conducted in May 2025, found that GP access (39%) sits above improving A&E waiting times (34%) and reducing the number of staff leaving the NHS by improving working conditions (29%) among the public’s biggest priorities. Despite it being the government’s flagship health commitment, cutting waiting times for routine hospital services ranks only fifth for the public.
Access to GP services has consistently topped the public’s priorities over the last year of the survey. And there is increasing public concern about the pressures GPs are under – 82% of the public (the highest recorded) are concerned about the level of pressure that GP practices are facing (up from 78% in May 2024 and 73% in May 2022).
The biggest challenges people believe their GP practice is facing are to there not being enough doctors (41%), followed by the pressures from an ageing population (29%) and due to a lack of funding (27%).
The poll also shows that public confidence in the government’s handling of the NHS remains stubbornly low, even as some key performance indicators begin to improve. Just 16% of people agree that the government has the right policies in place for the NHS, which is unchanged since November 2024. However, the poll took place before publication of the 10 year health plan. It also remains more positive than immediately before the election, when just 8% supported the government’s plans for the NHS.
While public views of the standard of care in the health service remain negative overall, there are some signs that perceptions of NHS care are slowly improving. 13% think that the general standard of care got better in the last 12 months (slightly up from 9% in May 2024), which is the highest recorded since 2020. Views of local services are more positive, with 46% of the public agreeing that their local NHS is providing them with a good service and 28% disagreeing, which is down from 32% in November 2024.
The government has made recovering the 18-week standard for routine care its top priority for the NHS in England by the end of the parliament. There are signs that progress is being made with the waiting list falling to its lowest in over two years, from 7.6 million to 7.4 million. Despite this, more people in England believe the waiting list has increased in the 12 months since the election (37%) than decreased (24%) – highlighting that people are yet to feel that things are going in the right direction.
Consistently low levels of public satisfaction in the NHS have not, however, resulted in a loss of faith in the NHS model – a universal, tax-funded health service freely available to all. While there have been some recent high-profile calls to consider alternative funding models, this view is not shared by voters across the political spectrum in the UK. 86% think the NHS should be free at the point of delivery, 85% think the NHS should provide a comprehensive service available to everyone, and 83% think it should be primarily funded through taxation.
For social care, levels of public confidence remain negative overall. Only 8% agree that the government has the right policies for social care, with 51% disagreeing (compared with 43% in November 2024). However, this marks an improvement in the public’s perception of the previous government’s approach to social care, with 63% disagreeing that the government had the right policies in May 2024, prior to the general election.
People in England generally think the state should have bigger role in funding care than it does now, but low public awareness and understanding of social care – including uncertainty about who should pay for it – remain significant barriers to reform.
Tim Gardner, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation, said,
‘Overall, the public mood on health and care remains largely downbeat but there are signs that perceptions are slowly improving. Views of local health services are more positive than perceptions of how the NHS is performing overall, especially among people with recent experience of accessing care.
‘The challenge for government will be convincing the public that their plans will deliver tangible improvements in the areas they care most about. While the government has made improving NHS waiting times its headline pledge, the public’s top priority remains easier access to GP services with tackling elective waiting times only fifth among their biggest concerns. Tackling unacceptably long waits for routine hospital treatment is essential, but resources are constrained and trade-offs are inevitable, so the risk is that slower progress is made on delivering the priorities that matter most to the public.’
