Cancer care shows patchy improvements

The National Cancer Patient Experience survey paints an overall optimistic picture of the state of cancer care in England with 88 per cent of patients reporting their care was either excellent or very good.

The survey of 116,000 patients at 155 NHS trusts that provide cancer treatments asked patients how they ranked the care they received. Some 31 trusts received worse scores than last year. Another 31 trusts had made significant progress since last year, 40 had made smaller improvements and there was little change at a further 50 trusts, the report found.

The survey showed the vast majority of patients had enough privacy, are being treated with respect, being listened to and given good information.

• 94 per cent of patients said they were always given enough privacy when being examined or treated.
• 91 per cent of patients said their clinical nurse specialist definitely listened carefully to them.
• 91 per cent got understandable answers to important questions all or most of the time from their clinical nurse specialist.
• 88 per cent of patients were given easy to understand written information about tests.
• 96 per cent of patients having an outpatient appointment with a cancer doctor said that they had the right documents such as notes, x rays test results with them.

Ciar?n Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, says: "It is really positive that just about half of NHS Trusts in England have improved the quality of care they give to people with cancer. But if half can improve, it is strange that a third made no improvement and some even provided worse care for cancer patients.

"Macmillan?s analysis shows that the treatment of hospital staff is intrinsically linked to this. Happy staff means happy patients. Conversely, where staff suffer high levels of discrimination or harassment, cancer patients are up to 18 times more likely to receive poor care. That is really worrying, and comes down to leadership.

"The good news is the results are proof that the focus on improving care, brought about by an annual survey, is driving up standards. But the survey alone is not the ?silver bullet?. Each hospital, which means its senior staff, has to implement practical solutions for improving cancer care and staff experience - and NHS England has to hold them to account."

NHS England National Clinical Director for Cancer, Sean Duffy said he was "disappointed" to see that 31 trusts? scores have deteriorated.?"The falls in score were marginal but this does mean there is more work to do."

But he added that he was heartened to see that so many patients had a good experience of their care.?"Whilst the results of this survey are very encouraging, every patient deserves the best experience they can have of care and that is what we shall be working on for future.

?This is the third year this survey has taken place and with each survey we are seeing improvements in the scores which indicates to me that the organisations individually and the NHS collectively is listening?which clearly demonstrates the power of the patients voice.

He said the survey explores some very important issues of care, for example, leading the way in obtaining information on whether sexual orientation impacts on the quality of care received.

?The data will complement other sources of information such as general inpatient surveys, the friends and family test and clinical information on mortality and readmission rates.?All these sources work to build our understanding of the quality of the care our patients receive.

?We know that where services are designed around the needs of the people who use those services, the overall experience they receive will be a far better one.

?Gathering the right kind of evidence helps us to have a better understanding of the different needs of people who use our services.?We can then do our best to address those needs in the most appropriate way for those users."

Source: http://www.onmedica.com/newsArticle.aspx?id=c0751c45-7fdd-4a7b-a573-2ff4a7711973

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