Joint Action on cancer iPAAC - building on experience and streamlining recommendations for the future

Abstract

Abstract Background Policy initiatives, proposals and projects often end up proposing solutions and/or measures that are eventually either not or only partially implemented or they are lacking a system, which would consistently evaluate their implementation and/or impact. Good solutions are often not visible enough to the broader professional community and it is important to identify certain outstanding challenges in cancer control and policy. Driven by the need to better use the outputs from projects on cancer policy, European Commission was trying to address two challenges - one was in solving the problems with the implementation and use of the solutions that have already been proposed and the other one in identifying the outstanding challenges in cancer policy. Results We have decided to follow the structure to develop a series of recommendations and examples of good practices at the national level by selected areas. These would be streamlined into a roadmap to support policymakers at the national and EU level in formulating their cancer policies. Three pairs of targeted recommendations have been identified: Cancer prevention, including health promotion, implementation of the European Code Against Cancer and the reshaping and extension of cancer registriesGenomics and immunotherapy in cancerChallenges in cancer care and governance of cancer control Conclusions Multinational collaboration can bring about important consensual solutions, which build on the existing good practices in the countries. This can be combined well with the existing work on specific areas, carried out both internationally and nationally. Consensus building on jointly defined challenges represents a task that appears to be resolved rather pragmatically. Key message It is important that advance in cancer care and control are quickly analysed and that policymakers receive up-to-date recommendations to improve their policies on cancer control.