Care of cancer patients praised

Care of cancer patients at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has again been highly praised in a national survey of patients who were diagnosed with the disease. The National Cancer Patient Experience Survey has been published and was completed by 613 local patients. Patients were asked to rate their care overall on a scale of 1-10 and patients in East Sussex rated their care as 8.6 out of 10 with our Breast, Haematology, Lung and Urology services scoring particularly well with scores above the national averages.

There were 59 questions that related to the Trust’s care, in 6 of these the Trust satisfaction rates were above the national average with the remainder sitting at around the national average and well within the expected ranges. 

Patients were particularly complimentary about the ease of access that they had to Clinical Nurse Specialists and the dignified way in which they were treated by hospital staff. Over 97% of our patients commented positively about the preparation that they had received for their surgery and 100% of the 133 breast patients that responded felt that they had received all the information that they needed prior to the operation.

Dr Adrian Bull, Chief Executive, said: “We were very pleased to note the very positive responses to this survey. It was very gratifying that so many of our patients took the time to respond. In fact the average response rate was much higher in East Sussex than it was nationally so I would like to thank those patients who completed the survey. These findings will help us improve our services to patients in the future. The report illustrates the excellent work being done by our multi-disciplinary teams and our chemotherapy units to care for cancer patients in East Sussex. As always we will be reflecting on the areas where further improvements can be made. Particularly in sharing more information with patients about local support groups and reviewing some of the information that is shared with patients to ensure that it is exactly what is needed. I would like to congratulate colleagues from all disciplines who work so tirelessly for the benefit of cancer patients, some of those will be well known to patients but there are many others who work behind the scenes who also contribute enormously to the care of our patients.”

The National Cancer Patient Survey has been carried out by the Department of Health for the last six years. The surveys concentrated on patients diagnosed during a two month period in 2016.