Et Bedre Liv Med Og Efter Kræft - Kræftplan V

Objectives

Cancer Plan V seeks to enable people to live better with and after cancer, minimise the effects of illness, and provide more individually tailored support. It comprises 36 initiatives across four action areas: quality of life during and after cancer; individually adapted cancer pathways; more cancer-free years through prevention and earlier detection; and stronger quality, technology, data use, medicines access and treatment capacity.[1][2][3]Its overarching objectives are to improve patients’ experience of post-hospital support, strengthen their involvement in decisions, and place Danish cancer survival among the highest in the Nordic countries.[4]

• Improve quality of life through consistent follow-up, rehabilitation, management of late effects, psychosocial support and palliative care, regardless of where people live.[5][6][7]
• Tailor care to patients’ health conditions, preferences, coexisting illness, treatment options and changing support needs, while maintaining rights to rapid assessment and treatment.[8][9][10]
• Strengthen late-effects services by establishing consistent regional clinics, clarifying responsibilities between hospitals, general practice and rehabilitation services, and improving access to dental-treatment subsidies for eligible patients.[11][12]
• Enhance palliative care so that people with life-threatening illness and their relatives receive earlier, coordinated physical, psychological, social and spiritual support, including greater opportunity to remain at home where desired.[13][14][15]
• Increase cancer-free life years by addressing tobacco, nicotine, alcohol, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and ultraviolet exposure, with particular attention to children and young people.[16][17][18]
• Improve early detection through public information on symptoms, stronger investigation of non-specific symptoms, equitable access to diagnosis, sustained cervical, breast and bowel screening, and consideration of more risk-based screening approaches.[8][10][19][20]
• Increase screening participation among groups facing barriers related to education, income, transport or language, and assess lung-cancer screening for people at particularly high risk.[21]
• Develop cancer quality through research, health data, artificial intelligence, technology, personalised medicine, robust staffing and capacity, and equitable access to effective medicines.[22][23][24][25]

Implementation

Implementation combines national policy and legislation, the 2024 health reform, regional and municipal delivery, general practice coordination, hospital services, research and data infrastructure, and collaboration with patient, professional, public and private stakeholders.[26][27][14][25]The plan builds on established cancer pathways, maximum waiting-time rights and national screening programmes, while seeking more systematic patient involvement and continuity across general practice, hospitals and municipalities.[2][10][28]

• Use general practitioners as a coordinating point after hospital treatment by inviting patients to follow-up consultations, agreeing individual follow-up plans, assessing needs and arranging support or referral.[29]
• Expand individualised prehabilitation and rehabilitation, including exercise, nutrition, smoking cessation, mental support, disease-management education and repeat referral when needs change.[30][31][32]
• Provide differentiated late-effects care through regional knowledge-centre clinics for complex cases, hospital departments for cancer-specific effects, and general practice or rehabilitation services for milder effects.[11][12]
• Build basic and specialist palliative-care capacity in municipalities, regions, hospitals and general medical services, including staff training, hospice places, outreach teams, round-the-clock professional advice and telepalliative support.[13][14][15][33]
• Strengthen patient involvement by recording needs and preferences before referral, during hospital treatment and in follow-up, supported by shared decision-making tools, patient-reported information and digital solutions.[34][35][28]
• Review screening programmes, introduce targeted outreach for people with low participation, and run a three-year lung-cancer screening pilot in the Region of Southern Denmark using experience with artificial intelligence.[21]
• Improve information sharing through a digital overview across sectors, stronger discharge information on possible late effects, a national network for diagnostic centres and registry reporting on cancer stage at diagnosis.[19][20]
• Implement prevention through communication, age-limit enforcement, product controls, tobacco- and nicotine-sales supervision, cessation services, municipal prevention, a proposed public health law and targeted measures on solarium use, alcohol, unhealthy food and physical activity.[17][36][37][38][39][40][41]
• Deploy research, health registers, clinical databases, artificial intelligence and health technology to support earlier detection, personalised treatment, post-implementation evidence on medicines and dissemination of successful digital solutions.[23][24][25][42][43]
• Support delivery with annual government funding of 600 million Danish kroner from 2025 onwards, alongside specified investments in prevention, regional cancer capacity, hospital modernisation, palliative care, lung-cancer screening and digital innovation.[2][26][27][14][21][24]

Monitoring & Evaluation

Cancer Plan V links implementation to existing patient-rights arrangements, cancer pathways, national screening programmes, clinical data and health registers. Its three overarching objectives provide a common basis for following developments: improving post-hospital support, increasing patient involvement, and placing Danish cancer survival among the highest in the Nordic countries.[2][4]

• Use maximum waiting-time requirements and cancer pathways to support timely investigation and treatment, while reviewing pathway monitoring to reflect more individualised care.[2][10]
• Monitor screening through review of existing programmes, consideration of risk-based approaches, and a three-year lung-cancer screening pilot in the Region of Southern Denmark. The pilot runs through 2026 and is scheduled for evaluation in 2027, including assessment of screening for high-risk groups and artificial intelligence.[21]
• Establish systematic general-practice follow-up after completed cancer pathways, using consultations and individual plans to identify late effects, physical and psychological difficulties, and rehabilitation needs.[6][29]
• Use national guidance to clarify responsibilities for cancer-related late effects and uniform national referral criteria to support equitable access to specialised palliative care.[11][12][13]
• Strengthen national data on palliative care to improve oversight of interventions and identify development opportunities.[14]
• Assess palliative sedation through a Ministry of the Interior and Health investigation during 2025, with conclusions presented to parliamentary parties.[33]
• Collect cross-sectoral data on non-specific cancer symptoms and strengthen reporting to the national cancer register on cancer stage distribution to support monitoring of early detection.[20]
• Use a national child and youth health profile to provide municipalities with local evidence for targeted prevention and potential local targets.[37][38]
• Support enforcement accountability for tobacco, nicotine, alcohol and solarium measures through inspections, product seizures, border controls, online monitoring, age-verification mechanisms and sanctions by relevant authorities.[17][36][37]
• Use national health registers, clinical quality databases and follow-up data for conditionally recommended medicines to assess treatment quality, effectiveness and safety after implementation.[23][24][25]
• Develop a national clinical database for personalised cancer medicine to register and analyse treatment data, support research and quality improvement, and facilitate assessment of new treatments.[42][43]

Quantified indicators, reporting cycles, evaluation criteria, named accountability bodies and comprehensive surveillance arrangements are generally not specified in the supplied material. Existing evidence includes a nearly 10% increase in five-year cancer survival between 2008 and 2022, while up to 60% of people who have had cancer are reported to experience late effects.[27][32]

Costing & Financing

The Government allocates 600 million Danish kroner annually from 2025 onwards to Cancer Plan V. The supplied material also identifies major linked investments in prevention, regional cancer capacity, hospital modernisation, palliative care, lung-cancer screening, digital health and innovation.[2]

• Allocate nearly 500 million Danish kroner to prevention measures for children and young people during 2024–2028, followed by 85 million Danish kroner annually on a permanent basis.[26][17]
• Provide 429 million Danish kroner during 2023–2025 for an extraordinary increase in regional cancer capacity, alongside a 22 billion Danish kroner health fund for hospital maintenance and modernisation during 2026–2035.[27]
• Fund general municipal nursing and cross-cutting quality standards with 250 million Danish kroner annually from 2027, including an expected strengthening of basic municipal palliative care.[14]
• Allocate 20 million Danish kroner annually during 2027–2029 and 40 million Danish kroner annually from 2030 for specialist palliative care in the regions.[14]
• Provide 30 million Danish kroner for the three-year lung-cancer screening pilot, partly financed through Cancer Plan V.[21]
• Invest 2 billion Danish kroner in disseminating innovative and digital health solutions during 2026–2035.[24]
• Support tobacco and nicotine cessation through nearly 5 million Danish kroner for the Kvit app, 60 million Danish kroner for 17 youth-focused projects across 38 municipalities during 2024–2027, and 8 million Danish kroner for alcohol-free youth-community initiatives during 2025–2028.[39]
• Provide unspecified additional or permanent funding for rehabilitation and prehabilitation capacity, patient involvement in hospitals, dental-treatment subsidies, palliative-care capacity, municipal cessation medicine, Stoplinien, the child and youth health profile, research and mature technology solutions.[7][30][31][12][13][35][37][44][23]

The material does not specify how the annual Cancer Plan V allocation is distributed across its four action areas or 36 initiatives. It also does not set out a consolidated implementation budget, financing split, cost estimates, funding gaps, resource-mobilisation plan or economic assumptions for most measures.[2][3]