A CANCER patient’s positive experience of care at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital is to be shared with senior directors.

Board members of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust are to be shown a report setting out why the un-named patient was so pleased with his care.

The patient was diagnosed after a biopsy in December 2013 and had surgery to remove a tumour from his throat. He was in the hospital for two weeks and returned for chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

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He wrote to staff: “I felt the teams worked together well so that I did not have to repeat my story continually or be referred elsewhere. There was a sense that they knew who I was.”

He said of the diagnosis: “What could have been a terrifying and confusing experience was managed seamlessly, like a stage-managed performance.”

The patient praised the focus on nutrition but said advice on physiotherapists to get his jaw moving again “came too late”.

He said of his operation: “I have no memory of being frustrated at being unable to communicate.”

Waiting times for radiotherapy were long but he said he was updated “regularly” including by text message.

He said: “As a patient who is feeling very vulnerable, you want live communication, rather than not knowing what is going on.”

In a report to Wednesday’s John Radcliffe Hospital board meeting, chief nurse Catherine Stoddart said: “The effect of staff members’ verbal communication styles on this patient have been discussed as an opportunity for learning.”



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