Table 1

Patient survey questions on aspects of care experience in patients with colorectal cancer

Question number*	Synoptic form of question	Exact question wording
13	Told diagnosis sensitively	How do you feel about the way you were told you had cancer?
15	Written info on cancer diagnosis	When you were told you had cancer, were you given written information about the type of cancer you had?
18	Written info about treatment side-effects	Before you started your treatment, were you given written information about the side effects of treatment(s)?
19	Shared decision-making	Were you involved as much as you wanted to be in decisions about which treatment(s) you would have?
20	Given name of specialist nurse	Were you given the name of a clinical nurse specialist who would be in charge of your care?
21	Ease of contacting specialist nurse	How easy was it for you to contact your clinical nurse specialist?
30	Staff explained operation—before	Before you had your operation, did a member of staff explain what would be done during the operation?
32	Staff explained operation—after	After the operation, did a member of staff explain how it had gone in a way you could understand?
35	Confidence in hospital doctor	Did you have confidence and trust in the doctors treating you?
40	Confidence in ward nurse	Did you have confidence and trust in the ward nurses treating you?
43	Thought info withheld	While you were in hospital did you ever think that the doctors or nurses were deliberately not telling you certain things that you wanted to know?
49	Written info at discharge	Were you given clear written information about what you should or should not do after leaving hospital?
51	Self-management info post-discharge	Did the doctors or nurses give your family or someone close to you all the information they needed to help care for you at home?
58	Emotional support as out-patient	While you were being treated as an outpatient or day case, were you given enough emotional support from hospital staff?
60	Waiting time as out-patient	The last time you had an out-patient appointment with a cancer doctor at one of the hospitals named in the covering letter, how long after the stated appointment time did the appointment start?
63	Adequate info given to GP	As far as you know, was your GP given enough information about your condition and the treatment you had at the hospital?
64	General practice staff support	Do you think the GPs and nurses at your general practice did everything they could to support you while you were having cancer treatment?
65	Cancer care integration	Did the different people treating and caring for you (such as GP, hospital doctors, hospital nurses, specialist nurses, community nurses) work well together to give you the best possible care?

*Cancer Patient Experience Survey (2010).
GP, general practitioner