Unanswered question
The French polling company IPSOS MORI keep nagging me to complete their 2017 GP Patient Survey. This questionnaire asks whether I’m ill and how often I visit my local surgery.
As it’s asking so many personal questions, it seems only reasonable for me to ask a few in return - particularly how much the NHS pays for this annual waste of money.
I rang their hotline. No answer. I called their French language hotline (I could have tried Polish, Turkish, Chinese or various other languages but I wouldn’t have understood the answerphone instructions) and left a message. No response.
I e-mailed. Nothing. I called a couple of weeks later and spoke to someone who passed me on to someone else who got a third person to call me back who said the cost was commercially confidential.
Ten years ago, the survey cost £10 million; I don’t suppose it’s got any cheaper.
