Quality Health has undertaken a repeat of the 2010 and 2012 National Cancer Patient Experience Surveys, on behalf of the Department of Health and NHS England. The survey covered all 155 acute hospital NHS Trusts providing cancer services, accounting for every Trust that provides adult cancer care in England.

The 2013 survey included a total of 116,525 adult patients (aged 16 and over) who had a primary diagnosis of cancer and had been admitted to an NHS hospital as an inpatient or as a day case patient. All patients surveyed had been discharged between 1 September 2012 and 30 November 2012.

1210 of the 2070 eligible patients from University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust who were sent a survey returned a completed questionnaire. This represents a response rate of 63% once deceased patients and questionnaires returned undelivered had been accounted for. The national response rate was 64% (68,737 respondents). These patients were allocated to 13 different cancer groups which included the four biggest cancer killers: Breast, Colorectal/ Lower Gastrointestinal, Lung, and Stomach.

Sean Duffy, NHS England National Clinical Director for Cancer, said:

“This survey allows people who have been diagnosed with cancer to provide feedback on the care and treatment that they have received….. 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.”

On a less positive note he said:

“However I am 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.”

In response to the survey, Mark Flannagan, Chief Executive of Beating Bowel Cancer, said:

“It’s disappointing to see that for bowel cancer patients seeing a GP, almost a third of them had to visit the GP more than twice before being referred to hospital. We’re concerned that this figure hasn’t improved since last year and we need to understand why. Bowel cancer is very treatable if caught early, so we’d like to see incentives for GPs for early diagnosis and penalties for late diagnosis.”

Individual Trust reports on the 2013 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey can be accessed at:

http://www.quality-health.co.uk/surveys/2013-cancer-survey-national-and-trust-level-reports