For journalists

What you need to write about the GP practices where your readers live: what the site is, how the rating works, a fact box for every area and how to cite us. Questions go to hej@vardbetyg.se.

About Practice Grade, in brief

Practice Grade (practicegrade.co.uk) is an independent, free site that rates England’s 6,163 open GP practices on how patients describe them in the 2026 GP Patient Survey, run by Ipsos for NHS England, and on how soon appointments take place, from NHS England’s appointment data. Every figure is shown with its margin of error and the number behind it, and a practice gets a label only when the margin of error supports it. The site is run by Arvid Pilhall as a Swedish sole proprietorship, with no ties to GP practices, the NHS or Ipsos, and no practice can pay to change what is shown. It lists the best-rated practices in England and in each area, and never lists the lowest-rated ones.

The method in three sentences

The Practice score weighs two NHS measures: the share of patients who describe their practice as good (the survey’s question on overall experience, exactly as Ipsos publishes it), 70%, and the share of appointments that take place within two weeks of booking (June to August 2026), 30%. England’s score is 80.0, and every practice’s score has a 95% interval. A practice is labelled “Clearly above the England average” only when its whole interval lies above the England figure; when the interval includes it, the label is “Cannot be told apart from the England average”, and when the whole interval lies below, there is no label.

The full method

The figures now

• 6,090 of the 6,163 open practices in England have enough answers to be rated. 73 have too few answers or no survey result.
• England’s Practice score is 80.0 out of 100: 76.7% of patients describe their practice as good, and 87.7% of appointments take place within two weeks of booking.
• 1,666 practices are clearly above the England average, and 3,489 cannot be told apart from it.
• Each of the 296 local authority areas has its own page, and so does London as a whole.

What is different

Tables of GP practices usually rank them on a single percentage, with no sign of how much of the gap between two practices could be chance. Practice Grade shows the margin of error and the number of answers beside every figure on every practice page, and says a practice is clearly above the England average only when the whole margin lies above it. Once the margin of error is shown, 3,489 of the 6,090 rated practices cannot be told apart from the England average.

We use the survey’s own figure and 95% interval for each practice, unchanged, and NHS England’s own definition of an appointment within two weeks. The other survey questions and appointment figures are on every practice page as facts and are not part of the rating.

A fact box for every area

Every area has a short fact box that you can use as it stands, in print or online, with its source line: the number of practices, how the area as a whole compares with England, with its margin of error, how many practices are clearly above the England average, and a link to the area page. It names no practice and does not place the area among other areas. Start with London, or find your area below.

How to cite us

Please use this source line, and link to the page the figures come from so that readers can check them:

Source: Practice Grade (practicegrade.co.uk), using the 2026 GP Patient Survey, run by Ipsos for NHS England, and NHS England’s Appointments in General Practice.
2026 GP Patient Survey: https://www.gp-patient.co.uk/

The survey’s figures are Ipsos’s and the appointment figures are NHS England’s; the Practice score and the labels are ours. Please give a practice’s or an area’s interval with its score: without it, a reader cannot tell a real difference from chance. The rating measures patients’ experience and how soon appointments take place, not the quality of clinical care. NHS England publishes the appointment data as official statistics in development, and practices record appointments in different ways.

What we will not do

• Supply a list of the lowest-rated practices, or a full ranking of practices beyond the published list of the best-rated, even on request.
• Rank areas against each other.
• Comment on a named practice beyond its published figures.

Contact

Arvid Pilhall: hej@vardbetyg.se. We can explain the method, check a figure before you publish it, or prepare figures for an area that is not a single local authority. We have no press images yet; ask if you need a chart or a map.