How to use GPAQ

There are several things to consider before running a survey, including how to administer it, how many patients to sample, and whether to assess a practice or individual doctors. Before running a GPAQ survey, please find out about 'Our conditions for use of GPAQ'.

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.

Otherwise, the information below may help if you wish to run your own survey. The GPAQ manual also contains more details about how to use GPAQ.

 

Ways of administering GPAQ

You can administer GPAQ by post or in the surgery. If you are not sure which to do, please read 'Why are there two versions of GPAQ?'.

For advice on how to run the survey by post, go to 'Running a GPAQ survey by post'.

Or, for advice on how to administer the survey in the surgery, go to 'Running a GPAQ survey in the surgery'.

How many questionnaires does each practice need to collect for GPAQ surveys?

Quality & Outcomes Framework guidance revisions were made in August 2004. Minor amendments included a change to the sample sizes required in the Patient Surveys indicator (PE 2.1). This has been changed to reflect an agreement between the BMA and DH that 25 questionnaires per 1000 registered patients on the practice's list should be returned (rather than 50 per doctor).

Previously it was recommended that 50 questionnaires per doctor needed to be analysed. Therefore, the main change is that it means more questionnaires need to administered for doctors with large list sizes.

Under the contract guidance, many practices with smaller list sizes (e.g. less than 2000 patients) can now collect less than 50 questionnaires per doctor. However, in terms of individual assessment we would still recommend that 50 questionnaires are collected per doctor for statistical reliability.

 

Using GPAQ with children and non-English speaking patients

GPAQ is designed for adults aged at least 16 years. There is no upper age limit for its use.

Multiple translations of GPAQ are now also available. Please see 'Translated versions of GPAQ' for further information.

 

Should GPAQ scores be calculated for a practice or for individual doctors?

The postal version of GPAQ is designed to collect information about practices. Although patients are asked to reply about the ‘doctor they know best’, the individual doctor is not identified.

Some practices may want to get GPAQ scores for individual doctors. Then we recommend that you use the consultation version of GPAQ. If GPs have individual GPAQ scores, they will be able to use these for appraisal and for their revalidation folder.

 

Analysing questionnaires

For details of the companies we have licensed to provide a GPAQ service to practices and PCTs who do not want to do run their own survey, please refer to the GPAQ Service page for further details.

Alternatively, if you are an individual practice wanting to run your own survey we have made freely available Excel and Access programs to enable you to do this. If you want to do more complex analyses using SPSS, you can use the SPSS syntax we have provided.

The "Improving your practice with patient surveys" handbook is also available to download from NPCRDC's website. This helps guide practices through what to do with their results of patient surveys.