THE FACTS

Detected early enough, patients with Stage 1 and 2 cancers have excellent survival rates. But education is crucial if we are to ensure early diagnosis and treatment [1] to pursue good treatment outcomes and optimal survival rates.

WHAT WE NEED

A primary healthcare system that is cancer minded, skilled and effective for early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and palliative care.

1. Community awareness.
2. Trained healthcare professionals (HCPs).
3. Diagnostic ability.
4. The development of functional referral pathways from primary care into diagnostic centres of excellence, and then on to tertiary cancer treatment centres within a workable time frame of no longer than four weeks.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

We need a structured, workable National Cancer Control Plan as a matter of urgency, along with reliable, comparable cancer surveillance data for planning of appropriate cancer services.

The Cancer Alliance has identified nine priority areas which require specific focus to ensure cancer is addressed holistically. Many of the points correspond to the nine targets of the World Cancer Declaration.

The documents and slides below provide more detail on the issues, which will be expanded on in the following sections of this Toolkit.