Cancer services patient experience in England: quantitative and qualitative analyses of the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey

Abstract

ObjectivesTo examine patients’ responses to the English National Cancer Patient Experience Survey to understand what proportions of patients give positive and negative feedback, and to identify themes in responses which drive evaluations.MethodsData comprise 214 340 survey responses (quantitative ratings and free-text comments) dated 2015–2018. The proportions of patients giving each quantitative rating (0–10) are compared and free-text comments are analysed using computer-assisted linguistic methods in order to ascertain frequent thematic drivers of positive and negative feedback.ResultsPatients were most likely to give a most positive score of 10 (38.25%), while the overwhelming majority (87.12%) gave a score between 8 and 10. Analysis of 1000 positive comments found that most respondents (54%) praised staff’s interpersonal skills. Other frequent themes of positive feedback included treatment standards, staff’s communication skills, speed of diagnosis and treatment, and staff members’ technical competence. The most prominent themes in the negative comments were communication skills, treatment standards and waiting times for appointments and test/scan results, and delays and cancellations to appointments and operations.ConclusionStandards of treatment and staff’s communication skills are prominent themes of positive and negative feedback. Staff’s interpersonal skills are more likely to be praised than criticised, while negative feedback is more likely to focus on issues around time (ie, delays and long waits). Clarity and honesty in communication about the lengths and causes of waits and delays are likely to increase patient satisfaction.

The language of vaccination campaigns during COVID-19

“…Studies of patient feedback have considered illness-specific feedback, such as Brookes and Baker (2021, 2022) diachronic analyses of feedback on National Health Service (NHS) cancer care services of patients with cancer, and general patients’ feedback on health services (Brookes and Baker 2017; Brookes et al 2022), although, to date, large corpus studies on health message reception are still not available. Instead, interviews, surveys and focus groups have allowed for direct insights into patients’ and practitioners’ experiences (eg, Hunt 2021 study on general practitioners’ views on depression diagnosis and treatment).…”

“…Integrating CL with DA provides the combined benefits of quantitatively analysing a dataset containing large quantities of textual data (“corpora”/ “corpus”), and qualitatively examining the linguistic patterns it highlights (see Marchi 2010 ). Corpus methods have been adopted to examine the representation of diseases by different official and media sources, and to gain insights into patients’ feedback on treatments and service experiences (eg, Bailey, Dening, and Harvey 2021 ; Brookes and Baker 2022, 2017 ; Brookes et al 2018 ).…”

Development of a Cancer Pathway Support Guide for Patients and Carers: A Codesign Project

“…In England, there is an annual survey-the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey (NCPES) [3], which enables cancer patients to give feedback on the care they received across the cancer pathway. Te NCPES data on patients' communication needs suggest that negative experiences are fuelled by inadequate information, lack of efective follow-ups, and communication barriers between primary and secondary care [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. NCPES and other sources reveal the inequalities in patient experience across protected groups, geography, and sociodemographic characteristics [4,6].…”

“…A mixed-method approach informed by the Beyond Sticky Notes CoDesign process was used including three online codesign workshops, one-to-one feedback, beta testing, and an online acceptability questionnaire [16]. Here, we will discuss the frst fve phases of the codesign process, namely, (1) build the conditions, (2) immerse and align, (3) discover, (4) design, and lastly, (5), test and refne. See Table 1 for the objectives to be achieved at each phase of the project.…”