Clatterbridge Cancer Centre scored 9.2 out of 10 in the 2025 national cancer survey, against 8.9 for England, and beat expectations on 16 of 61 questions.
Cancer patients treated by The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust rated their care 9.2 out of 10 in the 2025 National Cancer Patient Experience Survey. The England average was 8.9.
The trust scored better than expected on 16 of the survey’s 61 scored questions, and worse than expected on none. Only 13 of the 130 NHS trusts in the survey beat expectations on more questions (2025 trust data tables, NCPES).
Its strongest section was hospital care. Clatterbridge beat expectations on all nine questions about being an inpatient, including pain control, dignity, and whether patients could get help from ward staff when they needed it.
Wirral University Teaching Hospital, which runs Arrowe Park, sat closer to the middle. Its patients rated care 8.9 out of 10, in line with England. It beat expectations on three questions and fell below on two.
Two trusts, one Clatterbridge site
This gets confusing locally, so it is worth being precise.
Wirral cancer patients deal with two separate NHS trusts, and both have a hospital on the Clatterbridge site at junction 4 of the M53:
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (WUTH) runs Arrowe Park Hospital, Clatterbridge Hospital and Wirral Women and Children’s Hospital. This is usually where diagnosis and surgery happen.
- The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust is a separate specialist trust. It takes patients already diagnosed and referred, and provides non-surgical cancer treatment: chemotherapy, radiotherapy and similar. Its three specialist centres are in Liverpool city centre, Wirral and Aintree, and it serves 2.4 million people across Cheshire and Merseyside, North Wales and the Isle of Man (Clatterbridge Cancer Centre).
The survey scores are for each trust as a whole. The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre figure therefore covers patients at all three of its sites, not just the Wirral one.
What the survey is
The National Cancer Patient Experience Survey is commissioned by NHS England and run by Picker. The 2025 round was the fifteenth since 2010, and the results were published in July 2026.
- It sampled adults with a confirmed primary cancer diagnosis who had an inpatient stay or day case appointment for cancer treatment in April, May and June 2025.
- Fieldwork ran from November 2025 to February 2026.
- 64,268 people responded out of 134,285 asked, a response rate of 48%, down from 50% in 2024.
- 130 NHS trusts took part.
Each trust’s score is compared with an expected range that allows for the mix of patients it treats, so a specialist centre is not simply flattered by having sicker or older patients than a district hospital. A score above that range counts as better than expected; below it, worse.
Locally, 237 people responded for the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and 210 for Wirral University Teaching Hospital (national quantitative report, NCPES).
Where Clatterbridge beat the expected range
All nine of the survey’s hospital care questions came in above the top of the trust’s expected range. The figure in brackets is the top of that range.
| Question | Clatterbridge | Expected range top |
|---|---|---|
| Staff always did everything they could to help control pain | 96.5% | 91.2% |
| Always treated with respect and dignity while in hospital | 95.8% | 93.3% |
| Received understandable information about what to do after leaving | 94.6% | 94.0% |
| Had confidence and trust in all of the team looking after them | 91.2% | 85.0% |
| Family or someone close could talk to a doctor | 85.9% | 80.3% |
| Always able to get help from ward staff when needed | 84.7% | 81.5% |
| Always involved in decisions about care while in hospital | 81.9% | 79.7% |
| Always able to discuss worries and fears with hospital staff | 81.1% | 74.3% |
| Could discuss worries and fears while being treated as a day case | 87.8% | 85.6% |
The confidence and trust score is the one that has moved. On the unadjusted figures the trust went from 85.0% in 2024 to 91.6% in 2025, which the survey flags as a statistically significant change.
Clatterbridge also beat its expected range on having a main contact person in the care team (97.5%), on how easy that person was to contact (91.1%), on having side effects explained (81.8%) and on being offered practical advice about them (78.5%).
Its overall rating of care, at 9.25 unadjusted, is the highest it has recorded in five years: 8.93 in 2021, 9.04 in 2022, 9.13 in 2023 and 8.95 in 2024.
Where Wirral University Teaching Hospital stood out
WUTH’s three better-than-expected scores are all about what happens away from the ward, and two of them are well above the national picture.
| Question | WUTH | England | Expected range top |
|---|---|---|---|
| Has had a cancer care review with their GP practice | 64.4% | 41.4% | 55.5% |
| Waiting time at clinic or day unit was about right | 90.8% | 79.6% | 89.5% |
| After treatment, could definitely get enough emotional support at home | 48.3% | 32.9% | 46.1% |
The two questions where it fell below its expected range were both about whether patients had enough understandable information about their own responsibilities during treatment. One was answered by 79 people and scored 72.4% against a range starting at 73.3%. The other was answered by 15 people, which is a very small base, and scored 58.8% against a range starting at 61.0%.
The gap both trusts share
Neither trust does well on the questions about care outside hospital, and neither does England.
Just 44.9% of patients nationally said they definitely received the help or support they needed from their GP practice since their diagnosis. Wirral University Teaching Hospital’s patients scored 43.4% on that question and Clatterbridge’s 52.6%. Both are within the expected range, which is another way of saying this is a national problem rather than a local failing.
The same is true of long-term side effects. Asked whether they could definitely discuss options for managing the impact of any long-term side effects, 58.3% of WUTH patients and 62.1% of Clatterbridge patients said yes.
What it means for you
- If you are being treated at Clatterbridge, the survey says other patients rated the inpatient experience well above what the survey expected of a trust with its patient mix, on every measure it asked about.
- The scores are trust-wide. Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s number covers Liverpool and Aintree as well as Wirral, so it is not a Wirral-only result.
- The weak point is after treatment, not during it. Support from a GP practice and help with long-term side effects score badly everywhere, including here. If you are not getting that support, you are not an outlier, and it is worth asking your practice for a cancer care review.
- You can check the numbers yourself. The trust-level data tables and an interactive dashboard are published free on the survey’s own website.
Sources
- Latest local results, National Cancer Patient Experience Survey, for the 2025 trust level data tables used for every trust score, expected range and performance rating on this page.
- Latest national results, National Cancer Patient Experience Survey, for the England averages, the methodology, the fieldwork dates and the response rate.
- Who we are, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust, for the trust’s three sites and the population it serves.
- Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, for its hospital sites.
Scores are case mix adjusted unless stated otherwise. Where a question was answered by very few people, the base is given in the text.
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