GP practice and GP surgery

[sarawilcox]

A clarification has been proposed for the A to Z of NHS health writing: https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/a-to-z-of-nhs-health-writing#GP-surgery At the September Style Council meeting, we agreed that:

• when writing for the public, we will continue to recommend “GP surgery”, or just “surgery” (our user research shows that this is the language the public uses)

• when writing for healthcare staff, to make it clear that we use “GP practice”, or just “practice”

We will change the text in the A to Z from:

When we’re writing for healthcare staff, we may use the word "practice". For example, for "practice managers".

To

When we’re writing for healthcare staff, we may use the term "GP practice" or "practice" for short. For example, for "practice managers". Waiting for clinical approval.

[misakihata]

This was pull request #352. should be published this week

[sarawilcox]

Google Trends shows almost twice as many people searching for GP “surgery” as GP “practice”.

From NHS.UK Slack, Register with a GP team: "We didn't test practices vs. surgeries because there seemed to be enough existing evidence to justify using surgeries exclusively. Nobody seemed confused by this, or at least nobody mentioned it as a sticking point."

Some search stats (SOURCE: Ahrefs keyword tool): gp surgery near me | 33,000 searches per month gp practice near me | 10,000 searches per month