Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to request that Ipsos includes a category of "Speech, Language, and Communication Difficulties” in the annual GP Patient Survey.

The 2024 GP Patient Survey includes a question on long-term conditions, which currently lists 15 such conditions. ‘Speech, Language, and Communication Difficulties’ is not one of the specific options listed in this question in the 2024 survey.

We appreciate that there are many people in England who are living with speech, language, and communication difficulties. We must strike a careful balance between breadth of coverage and the availability of space in the questionnaire. Anyone who is living with a long-term condition which is not listed is able to select ‘Another long-term condition’.

However, we record all questionnaire feedback given to us and take it into account when we review the survey every year.