Australian Cancer Plan

Objectives

The Australian Cancer Plan is a future-focused national framework for the next decade and beyond, intended to accelerate world-class cancer outcomes and improve the lives and experiences of all Australians affected by cancer. It treats equity in cancer outcomes as a fundamental measure of success and applies person-centred, strengths-based, evidence- and data-driven, collaborative and all-cancer principles across prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, supportive care and end-of-life care.[1][2][3]

• Maximise cancer prevention and early detection by reducing modifiable risks, addressing social, cultural, commercial and environmental determinants of health, expanding culturally safe immunisation, and increasing participation in national breast, bowel and cervical screening programmes.[4][5][6]
• Develop targeted, risk-stratified and personalised prevention, risk-assessment and early-detection approaches that reflect individuals’ health status, risks, health literacy and social and cultural needs.[7][6]
• Enhance consumer experience by making people affected by cancer and their carers partners in care, with navigation, supportive care, appropriate information, shared decision-making and communication responsive to cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic circumstances.[4][8][9]
• Develop networked, integrated and high-quality health systems that coordinate primary, specialist, community, hospital, public and private services, deliver care close to home where safe, and provide equitable multidisciplinary care across the cancer journey.[10][11]
• Strengthen foundations for cancer control through connected data, technology, research, clinical trials, genomics policy, national standards and modern infrastructure that support equitable access and improved outcomes.[12][11][13]
• Transform the cancer-care workforce into an engaged, capable, diverse and culturally safe workforce, able to work at the top of scope, use new technologies and care models, and collaborate effectively across disciplines and settings.[4][13][14]
• Achieve equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by embedding their leadership, knowledge, strength and sovereignty; delivering culturally safe, trauma-aware and healing-informed care; and eliminating individual and institutional racism and discrimination.[15][16][17]

The Plan also addresses disparities in cancer risk, diagnosis, treatment and survival associated with geography, background, personal circumstances and cancer type. It identifies other populations at risk of poorer outcomes, including children, adolescents and young adults, culturally and linguistically diverse people, people living with disability or mental illness, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and asexual people, people with lower socioeconomic status, older Australians, and rural and remote communities.[18][4]

Implementation

Implementation is framed as a shared national responsibility across systems, sectors and jurisdictions, building on existing national and jurisdictional cancer plans and complementing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cancer Plan developed by the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation. Each Strategic Objective has a ten-year ambition supported by two-year and five-year goals, with actions prioritised through decision matrices, including one co-designed and applied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers, policymakers and consumers.[19][4][2]

• Govern through national collaboration involving governments, health services, clinicians, researchers, non-government organisations, cancer organisations, consumers, carers, priority populations, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led organisations.[15][5]
• Embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander co-design, significant participation in decision-making, implementation and evaluation, and place-based engagement with communities, families and people affected by cancer.[3][17]
• Draw on Cancer Australia’s Leadership Group on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cancer Control, its relevant adviser, the Australian Cancer Plan Advisory Group and the Jurisdictional Reference Group for strategic, policy and clinical input.[3][5]
• Build on extensive engagement, including two public consultations, targeted engagements, stakeholder workshops, a public webinar series and more than 700 submissions and consultations involving over 400 groups and 300 individuals.[1][19]
• Use Optimal Care Pathways as national best-practice standards, supported by a national framework for their development, updating, evaluation and uptake, including pathways for priority populations.[4][8]
• Establish an Australian Comprehensive Cancer Network connecting comprehensive cancer centres, cancer services, regional hospitals, community providers and primary care to share expertise, improve access, enable care closer to home and monitor system performance.[8][11]
• Develop and scale integrated, multi-channel and multidisciplinary navigation models co-designed with people affected by cancer, including approaches that improve transitions between prevention, treatment, supportive care, palliative care and survivorship services.[8][9][10]
• Expand digitally enabled and virtual care, particularly for regional, rural and remote communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, alongside innovative evidence-based and cost-effective care models.[12][11][13]
• Build workforce capacity through supply-and-demand modelling, accreditation standards, role delineation, professional development, multidisciplinary practice, cultural safety training, and targeted recruitment, training and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer professionals.[14][16]
• Strengthen data and accountability through nationally agreed cancer-data frameworks, better Indigenous status identification and reporting, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, patient-reported experience and outcome measures, and monitoring systems linking Optimal Care Pathway implementation to patient outcomes and experience.[12][11][13]

The Plan proposes transparency, continuous improvement and accountability for culturally safe care among health professionals, service providers, regulatory authorities and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer workforce. It also anticipates an independent review of the final Plan and uses international cancer-control-plan checklists as quality-control tools. The available material does not specify quantitative indicator targets, reporting schedules, detailed evaluation designs, formal accountability arrangements beyond these mechanisms, or budgets and funding allocations; it does, however, propose exploring innovative health-service funding models and assessing cost-effective screening approaches.[3][12][13][16][17]

Monitoring & Evaluation

The Plan frames equity in cancer outcomes as a fundamental measure of success and uses a ten-year structure of Ambition Statements, with associated two-year and five-year goals, to guide progress.[1][4][3]Its evaluation approach emphasises evidence, connected data, consumer experience, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership, transparency and continuous improvement across the cancer-control continuum.[2][3][12]

• Use cancer incidence, mortality and survival trends to understand overall progress, noting stable incidence since 2009, declining mortality over three decades, and five-year survival increasing from 53% in 1990–1994 to 71% in 2015–2019.[19][18]
• Track equity in outcomes, including the mortality disparity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people: from 1998 to 2015, the age-standardised mortality rate rose by 26% for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and fell by 16% for non-Indigenous people.[18]
• Embed patient-reported experience measures and patient-reported outcome measures in national performance monitoring and reporting across providers and population groups.[12][13]
• Establish nationally agreed approaches to collect and report comprehensive cancer data, supported by a national cancer data framework that improves the accessibility, consistency and comprehensiveness of integrated data assets.[12][13]
• Strengthen Indigenous Data Sovereignty and governance through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led initiatives, including improved identification and reporting of Indigenous status in cancer care.[12]
• Monitor differences in service delivery and outcomes between population groups, collect patient experience and outcome information sensitively and promptly, and use this evidence to identify service gaps and improve outcomes.[10]
• Evaluate, adapt and scale nationally integrated cancer-care navigation models, including models co-designed and tested with people affected by cancer and priority populations.[8][9][10]
• Link implementation of Optimal Care Pathways to patient outcomes and experience through monitoring and evaluation systems, supported by a proposed national framework for pathway development, updating, evaluation and uptake.[8][11]
• Use the proposed Australian Comprehensive Cancer Network to monitor evidence-based system performance, strengthen transparency and accountability, and support continuous improvement across networked cancer services.[8][11]
• Assess workforce readiness through national accreditation standards, supply-and-demand modelling and role delineation, while monitoring cultural safety and holding health professionals and services accountable for culturally safe care.[16]
• Use ongoing engagement and partnership mechanisms to identify emerging needs, monitor cultural safety in care standards, and support accountability involving service providers, regulatory authorities and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer workforce.[17][20]
• Apply international National Cancer Control Plan checklists as quality-control tools for alignment with world-class standards; an independent review of the final Plan is anticipated.[3]

The available material does not provide a complete quantitative indicator set, numerical targets, reporting timetable, formal surveillance protocol, evaluation design or named overarching accountability body beyond the monitoring, data, governance and service-accountability mechanisms described.[12][7][10][13][16][20]

Costing & Financing

No overall Plan budget, programme costing, funding allocation, committed financing source, resource-mobilisation target, funding gap, economic assumption or cost-effectiveness threshold is specified in the supplied material.[15][4][12][11][14]

• Assess evidence for risk-based and cost-effective population cancer screening, without providing a costing methodology or quantified economic criteria.[8]
• Implement innovative, evidence-based and cost-effective models of cancer care, including integrated palliative and end-of-life care and care delivered as close as safely possible to where people live.[12][11]
• Explore and test innovative health-service funding models to address areas of need and improve cancer-system performance.[12][13]
• Develop workforce frameworks, supply-and-demand models, recruitment and retention measures, digital and virtual care, connected data systems, navigation models and comprehensive cancer networks, but without specified financial commitments or resource requirements.[8][13][16]

Accordingly, the material identifies financing-related directions and cost-effectiveness considerations but does not enable estimation of implementation costs, recurrent expenditure, affordability, funding shortfalls or the distribution of resources between governments, services or population groups.[8][12][13]