Top cancer hospital is accused of confusing patients about disease

One of the world's leading cancer hospitals has been rated as one of the worst at communicating with patients about their condition.

Medics at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea have come under fire for confusing cancer victims and giving them conflicting information about the disease.

Patients also say they did not think doctors seeing them knew how to treat their cancer. Hospital bosses have now ordered consultants to improve standards in a memo, leaked to the Standard.

The patients' views were expressed in a survey conducted on behalf of the Department of Health's cancer czar Professor Sir Mike Richards.

About 1,700 inpatients at the Royal Marsden took part in the national survey of almost 70,000 people. It was based on their experiences from January to March last year.

The hospital's medical director sent out an email to staff saying the hospital trust was in "the bottom 20 per cent of trusts in the country". In the document, sent last week, Professor Martin Gore said there were four areas in which it had performed badly.

Almost one third of patients did not completely understand the explanations they were given as to what was wrong with them and a fifth felt they were told they had cancer insensitively.

Thirteen per cent felt doctors seeing them did not know how to treat their cancer and almost one quarter were given confusing information about their condition.

Geoff Martin, chairman of NHS campaign group Health Emergency, said: "It's of huge concern to Londoners and to those across the country that an internationally renowned specialist cancer hospital has fallen so low in terms of patient satisfaction. The hospital needs to give us an explanation for this."

Professor Gore said the hospital did well in most of the survey scoring highly on the quality of ward nursing care. The Trust has agreed an action plan to improve patient experience.