Public Awareness, Usage, and Predictors for the Use of Doctor Rating Websites: Cross-Sectional Study in England.

The findings suggest that online patient feedback websites may not be an effective channel for collecting feedback on patient experience in general practice. Feedback on online patient feedback websites is not likely to be representative of the patient experience in the near future, challenging the use of online patient feedback not just as a mode for collecting patient experience data, but for patient choice and monitoring too. We recommend the National Health Service channels its investment and resources towards providing more direct and private feedback methods in general practice (such as opportunities for face-to-face feedback, email-based feedback, and web-based private feedback forms), as these are currently much more likely to be used by the majority of patients in England.