Patients treated at cancer clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic were 'overwhelmingly positive' about their care

The findings come from a survey of more than 8,000 people conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including more than 1,000 who received care at an outpatient clinic in the Hunter New England region,

The survey, resulting from a partnership between the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) and the Cancer Institute NSW, was delivered across 40 facilities.

Almost all patients (98 per cent) said that overall the care they received was 'very good' (85 per cent) or 'good (13 per cent), and almost eight in ten patients said health professionals worked well together.

Of those with a virtual care appointment with a hospital or outpatient clinic in the 12 months leading up to the survey, about nine in ten (91 per cent) said their virtual care was 'very good' or 'good'.

In the Hunter New England region, 99 per cent of patients rated their care as 'very good' or 'good', 96 per cent said health professionals were kind and caring towards them, and 94 per cent said they would 'speak highly' about their clinic experience with friends and family.

A little over one in ten (13 per cent) experienced a complication, with 60 per cent describing that complication as 'very serious' (16 per cent) or 'fairly serious' (45 per cent).

The statistics gathered from respondents receiving care in the Hunter region were fairly consistent between both the John Hunter Hospital and the Calvary Mater Hospital.

BHI chief executive Dr Diane Watson said reassuringly, patients were overwhelmingly positive about the care they received in outpatient cancer clinics during the pandemic. In that context, the survey asked patients about their experiences of virtual care appointments (over the telephone or by video call). Key findings included that almost all patients (95 per cent) said virtual treatment helped them, and more than eight in 10 (84 per cent) said they would use virtual care again.

The most frequently cited benefits from virtual care were convenience (65 per cent) and saving time (50 per cent), but four in 10 patients said virtual care was not as good as in-person appointments.

An exception to the positive results was the experiences of people who speak a language other than English at home who were three times as likely to say they received conflicting information, and were significantly less likely to say their care was very well organised.

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