One in five appointments in general practice completed by a nurse

Over one in five people had their last general practice appointment with a nurse, new data shows.

The 2025 GP Patient Survey, completed for NHS England by the polling company Ipsos, found that 22.2% of the 700,000 respondents had their most recent appointment with a nurse between 30 December 2024 and 1 April 2025.

This was a slight fall on the year before, where 22.4% of respondents said their last appointment was with a nurse.

The findings, published last week, are based on national, integrated care system (ICS), primary care network (PCN) and GP practice-level data about patients experiences of primary care services.

Helen Lewis, an advanced nurse practitioner, independent prescriber and Nursing in Practice advisory board member, said the data points to the significant role general practice nurses (GPNs) play in general practice, but added that the findings did not specify what roles these nurses had.

‘What is not clear is whether this is the traditional GPN role in the form of practice nurses who have always been front line with regard to face to face contact with patients in terms of chronic disease management, vaccinations and wound care … [or] due to patients being seen by advanced practitioners who have developed their skills through the nursing pathway and not the medical model,’ she explained.

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Over three in five (63.5%) of respondents said their last appointment was with a GP, while a far smaller proportion (6.9%) said their last appointment was with another healthcare professional.

Even fewer patients said their last appointment was with a general practice pharmacist (1.7%) or a mental health professional (0.7%).

A further 5.1% said they did not know who they saw at their last appointment.

Like with GPNs, there has been a slight decrease in the number of respondents who said their last appointment was with a GP, down 1.3%.

New data is increasingly showing the worsening trend of falling nurse numbers across primary and community nursing.

Survey findings from a Cogora white paper published earlier this year suggested there was a registered nurse vacancy rate of 23% across practices in England, as well as a 16% shortfall of GPs and 32% shortfall of pharmacists.

Patient satisfaction

According to the GP Patient Survey, most respondents felt satisfied with their GP practice, with this number improving slightly on the previous year.

Three-quarters (75.4%) of patients had a ‘good’ overall experience with their GP practice.

This represents a slight increase from the 73.9% figure in last year’s survey and continues a steady increase following a six-year low in reported satisfaction in the 2023 report.

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A significant majority (93%) of respondents also said they had ‘confidence and trust’ in the healthcare professional they saw at their last appointment.

Regional variation

The survey also found demographic and regional variation in patients’ experience of GP practices.

Reports of ‘good overall experience’ varied by about 13 percentage points among ICB areas – 67.3% in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB compared to 80.9% in Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB.

Slightly higher levels of respondents identifying as ‘English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish or British’ (77%) said they had a good overall experience.

Meanwhile, satisfaction was highest among respondents identifying as ‘African’ (83%), and notably lower among the ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ community (64.3%). 

There was a nearly six-point difference in patient experience between those in the least and most-deprived quintiles – with 78.1% of those in the least deprived reporting a good experience compared with 72.5% in the most deprived.

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Nursing in Practice has launched a ‘How Nurses Count’ campaign to spotlight the major contributions practice nurses play across general practice, including in leadership and clinical research.

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