The hardest doctors’ surgeries to book an appointment at in Eastbourne in 2021

The majority of patients (71%) had a good experience booking an appointment, according to the latest GP Patient Survey, produced by Ipsos MORI on behalf of NHS England.

This is up from 65% in the 2020 survey.

The issue of whether GPs are offering enough face-to-face appointments as Covid-19 restrictions ease remains hotly debated.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has now unveiled a £250m package for GPs in England to improve access to their services - but only if they increase the number of in-person consultations.

GP groups have responded angrily, accusing ministers of failing to grasp the scale of the staffing crisis affecting surgeries.

The patient survey contacted 2.4 million people from January to April of this year to gather information on how patients feel about their local GP service, and around a third of them responded.

The results reveal the best and worst rated surgeries in Eastbourne and beyond.

They also shed light on people’s experiences of booking an appointment locally.

Here we reveal the Eastbourne GP practices in NHS East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group area which were voted the hardest to make an appointment at.

Surgeries are ranked by the proportion of patients who said their experience of booking an appointment was ‘very good/poor’.