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Problem scores

Around two-thirds of the survey questions produced problem scores, that is one or more possible responses indicating that the patient had experienced or perceived a problem with their treatment or care. The survey questionnaire included at the back of this report shows the response categories indicating a problem as blacked out boxes (see below).

• Download image of question with blacked-out boxes (use your browser's back button to return to this page) (GIF, 3K)

Any patient responding to either of these 'black box' answer categories would be classified as indicating that (s)he had a problem with their care at the Trust. For each Trust, for each of the appropriate questions, the problem score was the percentage of patients whose answers were in one of the categories identified in this way.

Bases

Some patients will have received treatment at more than one Trust or Network and this has been reflected in the analysis. In addition not all questions were relevant to every patient. The results are accordingly based on eight slightly different samples, and these are given at the foot of each column. For each question in the tables, a superscript letter indicates the relevant sample base. The Selected sample includes patients sampled at that Trust. Other samples reflect the different stages of treatment: Diagnosis, First Treatment and most recent Out-patient Treatment. Percentages in the tables are based on 50 responses or more. An asterisk (*) indicates a base of 49 or below.

National Total

This column shows problem scores based on all patients who responded to the survey, including those patients from Trusts whose response outcome was insufficient for their results to be identified separately. A score of 0.5% or below is indicated by 0.

Interquartile range: lower and upper quartiles

These indicate the range of scores within individual Trusts (excluding those with fewer than 50 responses). They are given for breast, colorectal and prostate cancer patients only; there were too few Trusts with 50 or more patients with lung or ovarian cancer or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to calculate those ranges. Because the quartiles are based on Trusts not individuals, sample bases are not shown. The best 25% of Trusts have scores at or below the lower quartile. The worst 25% of Trusts have scores at or above the upper quartile. (Because these are problem scores, a low score is better than a high score.) A score of 0.5% or below is indicated by 0. The range for each question and each cancer type is calculated separately: the best and worst Trusts may differ with the aspect of care under consideration as well as the type of patient being treated.

Network Total

This column shows problem scores based on all patients within the Network, including Trusts whose results are not shown separately. Percentages based on fewer than 50 patients are not shown. An asterisk (*) in a table indicates a base of 49 or below. A score of 0.5% or below is indicated by 0.

Trusts in this Network

Scores are shown for all Trusts in this Network where the selected sample is 50 or more. As with Network Total scores, an asterisk (*) in a table indicates a base of 49 or below and a score of 0.5% or below is indicated by 0.

Comparing scores

To calculate whether the difference between two percentages is significant at the 95% confidence level, apply the following formula to calculate X:

Where P1 represents the first percentage, N1 its base, and P2 represents the second percentage and N2 its base. If the difference between the two percentages is greater than X, then the difference is significant at the 95% confidence level. In other words, there is a 95% probability that the difference is a real one and not due to sampling or other errors. (This applies to percentages based on independent samples.)