Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey 2015-16: technical report

Introduction

The Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey is a postal survey conducted with the aim of establishing the experience of people aged 16 years and older who have received treatment for cancer in Scotland. This 2015/16 survey is the first time that the survey has been run.

The survey covers the care journey that a cancer patient experiences, from thinking that something might be wrong with them through to the support they received after hospital treatment. A copy of the questionnaire can be found in Appendix A.

The survey was administered across all 14 territorial NHS Boards as well as the Golden Jubilee National Hospital. Reports are produced for these 15 NHS Boards, the five cancer centres (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Edinburgh Cancer Centre, Ninewells Hospital, Raigmore Hospital), the three regional cancer networks (North of Scotland Cancer Network, South East Scotland Cancer Network, West of Scotland Cancer Network) and for Scotland as a whole.

This report provides technical information on the survey design, sampling, fieldwork and analysis of the 2015/16 survey. The survey results are available at: http://www.gov.scot/cancersurvey

The other regular national care experience Surveys are:

• Inpatient Experience Survey
• Health and Care Experience Survey
• Maternity Care Experience Survey

A one-off Radiotherapy Survey was completed in 2014.

The Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey is jointly funded by the Scottish Government and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The survey is supported by Information Services Division ( ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland. ISD's role included advising on survey methodology, securing approval from the Privacy Advisory Committee and Community Health Index Advisory Group to use patient information for the survey, sampling, producing national and local analysis and producing local level reports.

The administration of the survey fieldwork was undertaken by approved survey contractor Quality Health Ltd.

Aims of the Scottish Cancer Patient Experience Survey

The survey's aims are to:

• Provide comparative feedback to Regional Cancer Networks, Cancer Centres and NHS Boards that will be used to highlight areas of best practice, and to indicate where improvement work might need to be considered.
• Explore if there are differences in experience of treatment between groups of cancer patients (for example different cancer types and level of deprivation).
• Allow assessment of change in cancer care experience over time.

With respondent consent and the necessary approvals, results from the survey can in future be linked to data from other health and social care datasets by NHS Scotland statisticians. This would provide further insight into patients' experience of their care and treatments and link these to outcomes.