The National Centre for Social Research 14 August 2019
- The first ever large-scale research into attitudes towards emergency care from the most recent British Social Attitudes Survey reveals significant differences in perspectives by a range of socio-demographic factors, such as area deprivation, age, young children in the household and gender.
- People living in deprived areas are more likely to prefer A&E departments over their GP to get tests done quickly, find it more difficult to get an appointment with their GP and think A&E doctors are more knowledgeable than GPs.
- Parents with children under 5 are most likely to have used an A&E in the last year, to think it is hard to get an appointment with their GP, less likely to trust their GP but are also more likely to use the internet to try to decide what the problem might be.
- Men are less knowledgeable about how to contact a GP out of office hours and less likely to use the internet to research a health problem.
- Those aged 18-24 are twice as likely to both research a health problem online (62%) and to use the internet to decide what to do (47%), compared with those aged 75+.
