CANCER care at Poole Hospital is among the best in the country, a new national survey has found.

The Dorset Cancer Centre has been praised for the quality of care it offers cancer patients in the 2016 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey.

More than 770 patients responded to the survey and scored the cancer services at Poole 8.9 out of 10.

Patients ranked the hospital above average in a range of key areas including patients getting support through their treatment, being involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care, being treated with dignity and respect and ease of contact with their clinical nurse specialists.

Areas for improvement included explanations of treatment side effects and availability of information and details of cancer research projects.

Dr Tamas Hickish, clinical director for cancer care at Poole Hospital, said: “We are absolutely delighted with our latest results, and extremely proud that our patients again rated the overall standard of cancer care so highly in the latest national patient survey.

“The cancer team is committed to ensuring the highest standards of care for patients in the Dorset Cancer Centre at Poole, and are delighted to see that the hard work and dedication of our staff has been recognised in this survey.

“We remain committed to improving our service further, and will be looking closely at the areas where patients have rated us less highly to ensure we put in place any necessary improvements as soon as possible.”

The National Cancer Patient Experience Survey is conducted by Quality Health. It was sent to all adult patients with a primary diagnosis of cancer who were admitted and discharged between April, May and June 2015. The results were published on 5 July 2016.

For the full results go to quality-health.co.uk