Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey 2015/16
Results from the 2015/16 Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey. The survey covers the full care journey that a cancer patient experiences, from thinking that something might be wrong with them to the support they received after their acute-care treatm
Operations
In order to prepare themselves for what to expect when having an operation for their cancer and what the results mean, patients need to be given clear explanations and information about their procedure.
Among the 77 per cent who had had an operation, such as a removal of a tumour or lump, we sought to understand cancer patients' views on whether they had sufficient information before their operation, and afterwards whether the outcome was clearly explained to them.
Over three-quarters of respondents (77%) had had an operation for their cancer (Table 23).
Table 23: Operations for cancer
| Have you had an operation (such as removal of a tumour or lump) for your cancer? |
n |
% |
|---|---|---|
| Yes |
3,713 |
77% |
| No |
1,079 |
23% |
| Total |
4,792 |
100% |
Information before the operation
The large majority of patients had all the information they needed before their operation (93%). Amongst those that did not have the information they needed, there was a similar desire for more verbal and more written information (Table 24).
There was some variation in responses from different tumour groups. However, statistical tests concluded that these differences as a whole were not statistically significant.
Table 24: Information before operation
| Beforehand, did you have all the information you needed about your operation? |
n |
% |
|---|---|---|
| Yes |
3,281 |
93% |
| No, I would have liked more written information |
128 |
4% |
| No, I would have liked more verbal information |
91 |
3% |
| Options 2 and 3 (No, I would have liked more written information and more verbal information) |
41 |
1% |
| Total |
3,541 |
100% |
Information after the operation
After the operation, most patients (80%) received an explanation of how the operation had gone in a way they could understand (Table 25). However, this was less common than receiving sufficient information before the operation (80% vs 93%).
Table 25: Information after the operation
| After the operation, did a member of staff explain how it had gone in a way you could understand? |
n |
% |
|---|---|---|
| Yes, completely |
2,901 |
80% |
| Yes, to some extent |
624 |
17% |
| No, but I would have liked an explanation |
110 |
3% |
| Total |
3,635 |
100% |
The only tumour type statistically different from the all-cancer average was colorectal / lower gastrointestinal which was above average (85%) Figure 21).
Figure 21: % receiving explanation of how operation had gone, by tumour group
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