About GPAQ

GPAQ is a new questionnaire which has been developed at the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre in Manchester for the new GP contract.

GPAQ focuses on questions about access, inter-personal aspects of care, and continuity of care. This is because these are aspects of quality not covered elsewhere in the contract.

GPAQ has two versions. One is for sending by post and the other is given to patients after consultations. To find out which you should use, go to 'Why are there two versions of GPAQ?'.

We have designed and made freely available an Excel program to analyse GPAQ data that enables practices to analyse their own GPAQ data. If you do not wish to run the survey yourself, we have licensing agreements with several companies to provide a GPAQ service - please refer to this page for a description of the range of services available. Before running a GPAQ survey, please also find out about 'Our conditions for use of GPAQ'.

Also available via the downloads page are translations of GPAQ and the GPAQ manual. The GPAQ manual explains in greater depth how the questionnaire was developed, how it should be used, and the options for analysis. We have also provided national benchmark figures for GPAQ.

In addition, a handbook entitled "Improving your practice with patient surveys" is now available to download from NPCRDC's website. This has been written in conjunction with the authors of the Improving Practice Questionnaire to help GPs and their staff use patient surveys to develop their practices.

GPAQ is very similar to GPAS (the General Practice Assessment Survey) which has been extensively used and validated in general practice. The main difference is that GPAQ is shorter and easier to complete than GPAS. GPAQ can also be given to patients after consultations.

The questions in GPAQ have been extensively tested and validated in British general practice.

Some parts of GPAQ have been designed so that you can compare the responses with those of the PCT level surveys run by the Department of Health and the Picker Institute.