Cancer screening and treatment in Barnet

Report - 13 November 2019

The NHS produced a Long-Term Plan in early 2019, setting out the plan and framework for health services to change and improve for patients. One such service is increasing the number of patients attending NHS screening.

  Screening is a way of identifying apparently healthy people who may have an increased risk of a particular condition. The NHS offers a range of cancer screening tests to different sections of the population and with regards to some cancer screening, Barnet performs significantly worse than the UK average.

In order to get more feedback about this, we spoke to 34 service users at 5 different support group sessions, during July 2019, asking them about their experience with cancer treatment and care, and whether they have attended a cancer screening invitation sent to them.

The key findings from the report

  • For those people diagnosed with cancer, their pathways to diagnosis varied within the group, with some being diagnosed after their screening and most presenting through other means.

  • Although generally the respondents undergoing cancer treatment were pleased with the staff (consultants, oncologists, nurses etc), there were some areas, especially their experience leading to diagnosis, where patients were distressed with the careless attitude of the health professional.

  • Overall most respondents gave positive feedback about the support they received once diagnosed.

  • All respondents were aware of where to go if they were worried about symptoms.

  • Most of the respondents said that they had been invited for a screening appointment.

  • Respondents shared their experiences of the screenings.

We made recommendations to raise awareness of cancer screenings and make the experience better for service users.

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