The Friends and Family Test (FFT) will restart from 1 April for GP practices, NHS England has announced.
NHS England suspended the FFT for GP practices in March 2020 to free up GPs for the Covid-19 effort.
The FFT is an anonymous survey asking people if they would recommend the services they have used, letting GP practices know if patients are satisfied with the service provided, as well as where improvements are needed.
In its latest primary care bulletin, NHS England said: ‘The FFT has now restarted across the NHS and the temporary suspension will come to an end in March 2022.
‘The requirement for practices to report to commissioners regarding FFT returns will be reintroduced into the GP contract from 1 April 2022.’
NHS England said it realises it will take practices time to get back into submitting their FFT returns, and so ‘commissioners should not be expecting FFT data to be submitted until Q2 in 22/23 onwards’.
When it was first announced in 2013, the test was criticised by healthcare experts for asking the wrong question.
In 2017, some GPs pushed for the BMA to lobby to scrap the test as it gave no attention to the ‘dire challenges facing general practice’.
In 2019, NHS England said it was changing the test’s key question to make it clearer and more accessible.
List validation was also paused in April 2020 to free up time for practices to focus on Covid, but was reintroduced from October in the same year. It was also temporarily paused during the Covid booster vaccination drive
READERS' COMMENTS [2]
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Comedy. Progressive isn’t it.
Put the box outside no.10 Downing Street and the DoH. Try it. You dare not. How convenient. Keep the public ranting at the servants door.
Here’s the monthly report.
100% of patients would recommend this place to a friend, because it is free and a walk over. They call me a million times and it’s like having a third arm, leg and brain to aid me through life. It’s fantastic. I don’t need to do anything, just threaten to write a bad review and complain. Under the thumb. Manned by good doers, shafted by this piece of paper, and made to look like an untrustworthy soul in the gutter of life, after a pandemic, clapped then slapped and judged by the public who wouldn’t dare trade places. There, task over.
And repeat.