---

Breast Cancer

Answer

Information concerning the number of women with secondary breast cancer who are given access to a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and the number and proportion of breast cancer patients who are offered a written follow-up care plan, a named individual to contact and other personalised information and support is not collected.

However, ‘The National Report of the 2010 Cancer Patient Experience Survey’, published in December 2010, included a series of questions about CNSs, written information and provision of support. The views of over 67,000 cancer patients were included in the survey results, of which 14,264 had breast cancer. Patients with secondary breast cancer are included in this figure, but are not identified.

Set out in the following table are the responses of patients with breast cancer to questions concerning CNSs, written information and support, presented alongside the results for all cancers.

Questions	Breast cancer (%)	All cancer (%)
Given the name of a CNS	93	84
Given clear written information given about what to do or not do after leaving hospital (in-patient care)	89	82
Given the right amount of information about condition and treatment	89	88
Hospital staff provided information about support and self-help groups	86	79
Definitely given enough emotional support while being treated as an out-patient	69	71

Datasets for the 2010 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey and the forthcoming 2010-11 survey are based on International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes. C50 covers all malignant neoplasms of the breast, so patients with secondary or recurrent breast cancer cannot be identified separately.

The National Cancer Survivorship Initiative pilot Patient Reported Outcomes Measures survey of cancer survivors in 2011 asked breast cancer patients how' their cancer responded to treatment. One of the possible responses to this question was ‘My breast cancer has come back after it was originally treated’, so these women will be separately identifiable. Results of the pilot are expected to be published in the autumn.

We know that cancer patients greatly value the care and support of CNSs. To support the national health service to develop the CNS work force, ‘Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer’ sets out our

intention to build the evidence base for the benefits and costs savings that CNSs can offer. This follows an independent report we published in December 2010 that showed that, in many scenarios, the costs of additional support roles are likely to be outweighed by the savings that can be achieved.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

118454; 549 cc237-8W

Session

2012-13

Subjects

Breast cancer Health services

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk