PEP Health insights reveal a 165% increase in negative reviews for cancer patients in England since 2017.

PEP Health's empirically proven technology that listens and interprets patient comments has been listening to the public comments made by patients since 2017. As part of our research we currently listen to ~100 Million lives across the UK and parts of the USA.

Here we look at all cancer services delivered by the NHS across England. We see that even before Covid there has a dramatic and continuing negative trend of poor experiences reported by patients.

Of note:

·???????Negative reviews from patients about cancer care have risen by 165% from 2017 to 2023.

·???????This has been driven by an increasing number of negative reviews discussing Effective Treatment and Emotional Support.

·???????This trend has resulted in a decline in Overall patient experience.

The East of England suffers from the lowest patient experience scores for cancer care, and has tumbled to an all-time low generating an even greater variation between providers.

Percentage of negative reviews

The percentage of negative (one and two-star) reviews about cancer care has risen from 9% in 2017 to 24% in 2023 (to-date). There were year-on-year increases every year except 2020 and 2021, where the impact of Covid led to more positive reviews overall.

Data available by cancer alliance, region and location. [email protected]