Felles Innsats Mot Kreft — Nasjonal Kreftstrategi 2025–2035

Objectives

Norway’s National Cancer Strategy 2025–2035 sets a ten-year framework to reduce cancer incidence, improve early detection, provide equitable and high-quality treatment and follow-up, increase survival, and secure the best possible quality of life for people with cancer and their relatives. Its five goal areas are prevention and early detection, good patient pathways, user-oriented cancer care, longer survival with and after cancer, and quality of life for patients and relatives.[1][2]

• Prevent cancer by reducing tobacco and nicotine use, harmful alcohol consumption, ultraviolet exposure, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, excess weight, occupational carcinogen exposure and other environmental risks; more than one-third of annual cancer cases are estimated to be preventable.[3][4]
• Reduce inequalities in prevention, diagnosis and treatment by targeting both the general population and groups at higher risk, and by addressing economic, cultural and sociodemographic barriers to screening and services.[4][5]
• Achieve a tobacco-free generation among people born after 2010, reduce daily tobacco use to below five per cent in every age and educational group, and strengthen smoking-cessation support.[6][7]
• Eliminate cervical cancer and other human papillomavirus-related cancers through high vaccination uptake, accessible testing and follow-up, and high participation in cervical screening.[7][8]
• Improve early diagnosis through precise, evidence-based and equitable screening, including continued assessment of lung and prostate screening, while monitoring stage distribution and avoiding investigations with limited expected benefit.[9][10][11]
• Provide complete, coordinated cancer pathways spanning prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, rehabilitation and palliative care, with access to regional specialist expertise and Comprehensive Cancer Centres, Cancer Centres or coordinated networks.[12]
• Strengthen patient-centred care through individual digital pathway overviews, digital home follow-up where wanted, understandable information, shared decision-making and needs-based follow-up where clinically appropriate.[13][14][15]
• Improve outcomes by providing appropriate diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and follow-up at the right time, limiting avoidable over-treatment, expanding personalised medicine and securing equitable access to proton therapy.[16][17]
• Advance research and innovation by maintaining strong cancer research, facilitating responsible use of health data, integrating clinical studies into care and doubling cancer-patient participation in clinical trials.[18][19]
• Improve quality of life by integrating rehabilitation, psychosocial support, support for work and education, early needs-based palliative care, and comprehensive support for relatives and children affected by serious illness.[20][21][22]

Implementation

Implementation is a shared cross-sector effort led through health authorities and health and care services within their responsibilities, financial frameworks, workforce availability and other conditions. It combines prevention, standardised and personalised care pathways, coordinated delivery across service levels, research and innovation, and systematic patient and relative involvement.[23][24]

• Coordinate national implementation through the Partnership Against Cancer, led by the Norwegian Directorate of Health and comprising the Norwegian Cancer Society, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities, the four regional health authorities, cancer patient organisations and the Cancer Registry of Norway.[2]
• Maintain a strategic partnership between the Ministry of Health and Care Services and the Norwegian Cancer Society, holding annual meetings on a selected goal area and considering adjustments when barriers arise or objectives are achieved early.[2]
• Use Cancer Mission Hub to connect research, public authorities, industry, user organisations and health trusts, and link Norwegian initiatives with the European Union Cancer Mission and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.[23]
• Strengthen workforce capacity through good working conditions, task-sharing, competence development, recruitment, qualification and further training, particularly as demand rises for pathology, radiology, surgery, radiotherapy and medicines-based treatment.[25][23]
• Deliver coordinated pathways through hospitals, general practitioners and municipal services, using standardised cancer pathways and a Home for Cancer Patients pathway with needs-assessment conversations in specialist and municipal services.[26][27]
• Provide equitable regional access by linking hospitals through common procedures, equipment, information systems and structured case discussion, while concentrating highly specialised treatments where appropriate.[28]
• Develop screening programmes on the basis of evidence on research, costs, effects and ethical, legal, organisational, professional and staffing implications; the Norwegian Directorate of Health investigates and recommends changes, while the Ministry considers matters through annual budget processes.[9]
• Expand accessible digital services through Helsenorge.no and the Helsenorge app, digital communication, electronic questionnaires and welfare technology, while retaining non-digital options and support for people unable to use digital tools effectively.[14][29][15]
• Apply national priority-setting criteria to new personalised-medicine methods and treatments, and communicate decisions rapidly through direct channels, national action plans and the Norwegian Directorate of Health website.[30][17]
• Integrate rehabilitation, palliative care and support for work, education and relatives through cooperation among specialist services, municipal care, general practitioners, employers, voluntary organisations and patient organisations.[20][21][22]
• Monitor implementation through annual partnership review, pathway activity and quality data, national cancer quality registries, screening quality improvement, cancer-stage distribution and Directorate monitoring of completed specialist-service needs assessments.[2][11][26][27]
• Track explicit targets including reductions in premature non-communicable-disease mortality, physical inactivity, harmful alcohol use and ultraviolet-related skin cancer, as well as increased clinical-study participation; detailed reporting templates and a comprehensive evaluation framework are not specified in the supplied material.[4][31][19]

Monitoring & Evaluation

The strategy combines ten-year outcome ambitions with annual implementation review, targeted service monitoring and use of registry, pathway and patient-reported data. The Norwegian Directorate of Health has operational responsibility for follow-up under the Ministry of Health and Care Services, while the Partnership Against Cancer and a strategic partnership with the Norwegian Cancer Society provide coordination and review mechanisms.[2]

• Review progress annually through strategic-partnership meetings, each focused on one goal area, and adjust action where barriers threaten the ten-year goals or objectives are achieved early.[2]
• Assess progress against ten-year targets intended to establish whether the strategy’s desired outcomes have been achieved, although detailed cross-cutting indicator definitions and baselines are not consistently specified.[32][2]
• Track prevention outcomes, including the commitment to reduce premature mortality from cancer and other non-communicable diseases by one-third by 2030 against 2015, physical inactivity by 15% by 2030, harmful alcohol use by 20% by 2030, and ultraviolet-related skin-cancer incidence by 25% by 2040 against 2018.[4][31][6]
• Monitor daily tobacco use across age and educational groups against the target of below 5%, and assess human papillomavirus-related cancer elimination through vaccination uptake, cervical-screening participation and cancer trends.[7][8]
• Evaluate screening programmes continuously for participation, benefits, harms, cost-effectiveness and equitable access, including socio-demographic differences; monitor cancer stage distribution and intervene where it becomes unfavourable nationally or regionally.[5][11]
• Use activity and quality data, with greater use of national cancer quality registries, to monitor cancer pathways across service levels; regularly update national cancer action programmes to reflect new evidence and decisions on new methods.[26]
• Monitor the number of patients in each health region completing a needs assessment in specialist services, supporting implementation of the Home for Cancer Patients pathway and coordination with municipal follow-up.[27]
• Use digital questionnaires, patient-reported measurements and shared-decision-making information to support needs-based follow-up and service improvement, with electronic assessment and clinical review when required.[14][29][15]
• Monitor benefits, adverse effects and later loss of benefit from cancer treatment for people with incurable disease, to enable treatment adjustment and avoid avoidable over-treatment.[16][30]
• Use population-based cancer registries and European registry collaboration to improve cancer statistics, data quality, harmonisation, completeness and the timeliness of quality-assured information.[18]
• Track stated outcome ambitions including doubling participation in clinical studies, estimated at approximately 15% of patients, and supporting working-age patients’ attachment to employment.[19][21]

Reference measures include five-year relative survival for cancers diagnosed during 2019–2023, reported as 77.6% for men and 77.4% for women; however, the extract does not provide a comprehensive reporting template, common reporting timetable, full indicator catalogue, independent evaluation design or separate accountability framework for all strategy goals.[33][2][18]

Costing & Financing

Implementation is framed within the responsible authorities’ existing financial frameworks, workforce availability and other operating conditions. The material emphasises capacity, competence, research, digital development and workforce needs, but does not present a consolidated budget, costed implementation plan, funding gap or quantified economic assumptions for the 2025–2035 strategy.[23]

• Consider new national screening programmes through the Ministry of Health and Care Services’ annual budget process, following analysis of costs and effects as well as ethical, legal, organisational, professional and staffing implications.[9]
• Require evidence on costs and effects before recommending new national screening programmes, alongside assessment of the broader consequences for service delivery and staffing.[9]
• Recognise resource pressures in pathology and radiology and the need for prioritised personnel use, digital tools and artificial intelligence as precision diagnostics, personalised treatment and clinical research expand.[28]
• Invest in workforce conditions, task-sharing, recruitment, qualification and further training to address personnel pressures in health and care services.[23]
• Support research and innovation through national and international funding opportunities and the Norwegian Catapult scheme, although no funding amounts or allocations are identified.[34][18]
• Provide free smoking-cessation medicines in the cited Vestre Viken pilot and assess screening for cost-effectiveness, without specifying monetary values, recurrent financing or scale-up costs.[7][5]
• Note that needs-based digital outpatient follow-up may release healthcare capacity and save professional time, but provide no monetary valuation, investment requirement or financing plan for digital services.[15]

No explicit total expenditure, programme allocation, funding source, fiscal envelope, funding shortfall, unit cost, economic forecast or cost-benefit estimate is supplied for cancer pathways, digital follow-up, Cancer Centres, clinical trials, rehabilitation, palliative care or support for relatives.[9][12][14][19][22]