Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to monitor the standard of care received by cancer patients and to reduce regional variations in the standard of such care.

The latest Cancer Patient Experience Survey results, from 2013, shows 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 the Cancer Patient Experience Survey (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. NHS Improving Quality will be doing a suite of work across all surveys to understand what the barriers are to implementing change and to showcase best practice where real improvements can be demonstrated.

The CPES survey results are delivered to every organisation so each can see how they compare to other organisations. Currently, the action plans are taken into account as part of Peer Reviews. NHS England would expect that every trust board should know its own survey results and take account of them.

Clinical commissioning groups are currently in the process of finalising measurable levels of ambition to improve patient experience and will be holding providers to account. These are based on NHS England's new measure for poor inpatient experience which includes dignity and respect and communication.