GP practices to resume Friends and Family Test from April

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’.

Although, GP practices should start to make the FFT available to their patients from April onwards, there is no requirement to submit any data prior to July 2022, it also said.

FFT data is submitted through the CQRS system, with practices given until the 12th working day (inclusive) after the month end to make their submission.

See the latest guidance on FFT here and FAQs here.