Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The National Survey of Local Health Services, 2006: Primary Care Trusts was commissioned by the Department of Health, to assess patient satisfaction with local Primary Care Trust (PCT) services. The survey was not part of the Healthcare Commission's National Health Service Patient Survey Programme (held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33348), but was commissioned specifically to cover PCTs, which were not included in the 2006 set of Patient Programme surveys. The survey was conducted using the same questionnaire and methodology as all the previous Healthcare Commission surveys, which means that it is possible to compare results with those covering PCTs from previous years; patients were selected in the same way and data collection based on the same criteria. However, it is important to bear in mind that this survey was designed to produce national results only: it was conducted using a smaller sample of patients than in previous surveys, and it was centrally administered (PCTs were not involved in running the survey or in the collection of data). Further information about the survey, including publications and tables, may be found on the Department of Health's National Survey of Local Health Services, 2006 web page.

Main Topics:

Topics covered included: making appointments, visiting the general practice/health centre, consultations with doctors, medicines, referrals, consultations with doctors from other practices, overall satisfaction with general practice/health centre, and respondents' demographic details.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Systematic samples within 303 individual PCTs that formed first order sampling units. See documenta

Postal survey