More people than ever are living with and beyond cancer.
The NHS is leading the way in cancer care by recognising that living a good quality of life is as important to people as survival. Receiving care that is tailored to a person’s needs can have a significant impact on their experience and quality of life.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are committed to achieving this ambition by supporting the Cancer Alliances to continue their work.
We are working to ensure that every person receives personalised care and support from cancer diagnosis onwards. There are three key areas of this work which is detailed throughout the Personalised care section of our website
Cancer Quality of Life Survey
The NHS Long Term Plan for Cancer promised to “introduce an innovative quality of life metric to track and respond to the long-term impact of cancer”.
Measuring people’s quality of life is about understanding the impact of cancer and how well people are living after their diagnosis. This includes a wide range of concerns, such as people’s emotional or social wellbeing, finances, and ongoing physical problems, such as tiredness and pain
To support this goal, there is a nationwide Cancer Quality of Life Survey which was rolled out from September 2020.
The Cancer Quality of Life Survey aims to:
- lead to a step-change in the national debate on the importance of quality of life alongside survival;
- help to benchmark quality of life so that those groups with the worst problems can be identified and targeted for improvement;
- empower individuals to discuss their quality of life with their health and social care teams, and
- allow researchers access to rich data that can enhance our wider understanding of what impacts on quality of life after a cancer diagnosis.
We want to encourage as many people as possible to complete their survey so that the information collected fully represents our cancer population.
You can find out more information about the Cancer Quality of Life Survey on the dedicated website.