The majority of patients across all of Ipswich's GP practices had a positive experience in the last 12 months.

The news comes from the latest annual GP patient survey, which asked almost 11,000 people across Suffolk and North Essex about the service they received last year.

Dr Solway & Dr Mallick Practice was the highest performing surgery in the town, with 94% of respondents describing their overall experience as good.

85% said they found it easy to get through by phone.

Across the entire region, 77% of people said they had good experiences with their GPs, while 59% spoke positively about booking reaching their practice over the phone.

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The area performed better than the national average across all four categories - overall experience, ease of getting through by phone, ease of booking an appointment and satisfaction with appointment times.

Another high flyer in Ipswich was Orchard Medical Practice which saw 86% of patients describe their overall experience as good, while 81% said getting through via phone was easy.

Dr Ed Garratt, chief officer at Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board, said: “This is an incredibly positive achievement for all the staff working in GP practices across the area as well as their patient groups who provide valuable advice and support.

Ipswich Star: Dr Ed Garratt, chief officer at Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care BoardDr Ed Garratt, chief officer at Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (Image: Johnston Press/Suffolk CCGS)

"I want to thank them for all their great work, they should be incredibly pleased that we are performing better than the national average on all metrics.”

Cardinal Medical Practice, which has three surgeries on Chesterfield Drive, Deben Road and Norwich Road, saw 54% of respondents describe their overall experience as good.

Just 21% said they found it easy to get through by phone.

Burlington Road Surgery saw a positive response of 66% regarding experience, while 34% thought phone services were adequate.

Despite these ratings, both services did see a majority of patients describe a positive experience, meaning no practice in Ipswich recorded a poor performance in the last 12 months.

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The survey also looked at reasons why patients had avoided making appointments, with the majority of those saying it was a result of finding it hard to do so (22pc up from 10pc in 2021) or concerned about being a burden on the NHS (up from 19pc to 21pc).