Friends_and_Family_Test
The Friends and Family Test was introduced into the English NHS in 2013. It was a single question survey which asked patients whether they would recommend the NHS service they have received to friends and family who need similar treatment or care.
The friends and family question: “We would like you to think about your experience in the ward where you spent the most time during this stay. How likely are you to recommend our ward to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Patients could answer as “extremely likely”; “likely”; “neither likely nor unlikely”; “unlikely”; “extremely unlikely”; or “don’t know”.
The Prime Minister announced on 25 May 2012 that the Friends and Family Test would be introduced across the NHS from April 2013.[1] In October 2013 Francis Maude announced the Test would be extended across the NHS and other public services, including further education, Jobcentre Plus and the National Citizen Service.[2]
Publication of the first results in September 2013, based on small numbers of responses, brought complaints that the test was giving a false picture.[3] There were also complaints about the methodology on the grounds that it is susceptible to too many uncontrolled variables for the result to be meaningful.[4]
In November 2013 IWantGreatCare formed a partnership with the NHS Alliance to set up a service which allows patients to rate and review doctors, hospitals and GP practices, and provide the Friends and Family test which all GPs will be required to provide from December 2014.[5] By February 2015 it had grown into the biggest ever collection of patient opinion in any health service anywhere in the world.[6]
In July 2019 NHS England announced that the test would no longer be required in its present form. There would no longer be a mandatory question about whether the patient or service user would recommend the service from April 2020.[7]
It was suspended by NHS England for GP practices in March 2020 to free up GPs in the COVID-19 pandemic in England. They were told to resume from 1 April 2022. 1,593 GP practices submitted a total of 164,595 patient responses for July 2022. 87% were positive.[8]