Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of variations in cancer patient experiences.

The latest Cancer Patient Experience Survey (CPES) results, from 2013, show that whilst variations between trusts still exist, the overall range of variation for many indicators has narrowed.

For example, in 2010 the proportion of patients saying that they had been given the name of a Clinical Nurse Specialist ranged from 92% in the highest performing trust to 59% in the poorest performing trust (33 points); by 2013 this had reduced to 97% to 76% (21 points).

NHS England is working with NHS Improving Quality to develop better ways of using CPES data within the National Health Service in order to maximise the impact of the survey, to be able to work with successful and struggling organisations to spread best practice for example. Their intention is that the learning from this can then be transferred across all surveys to understand what the barriers are to implementing change and to showcase best practice where real improvements can be demonstrated.