MP: There is a disconnect between national priorities and local experience
Yesterday in Parliament, a debate was held about cancer patient experience. As Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, John Baron MP warned the Government that it risked a disconnect between well-meaning national priorities regarding patient experience and local implementation, and cancer patients’ experience of their local NHS was suffering as a result. He suggested a number of measures to combat this.
John said:
“The monitoring of patient experience is built in at a national level, through the NHS Outcomes Framework. But as yet it is not built in at a local level through the CCG Outcomes Indicator Set. There is a disconnect which needs to be put right. If we are to improve patient experience, we need to ensure that national policy is followed through locally.”
“There is vast variation of cancer care across the country. There are unacceptable geographical variations. But there are also huge variations between different types of cancer. For example, people with rarer cancers report a worse experience. This is why monitoring cancer patient experience both nationally and locally is important.”
Ends
Word Count: 202
Date: 31st October 2013
Notes to Editors
Focus on patient experience is built in at a national level of the NHS through the NHS Outcomes Framework which sets national priorities for the NHS to adhere to. But such a patient experience measure is not monitored at a local NHS level – it being absent from the CCG Outcomes Indicator Set which sets priorities at a local level.
More than 2 million people are now living with and beyond cancer. That will rise to 4 million by 2030.
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