Et Bedre Liv Med Og Efter Kræft - Kræftplan V

Objectives

Cancer Plan V is Denmark’s national cancer strategy, aiming to help people live better with and after cancer by reducing the impact of illness and providing more personalised, equitable and high-quality care.[1]It builds on four previous cancer plans and the 2024 health reform, organising 36 initiatives across four areas of action.[2][3]Its three overarching objectives are to improve patients’ experience of support after hospital treatment, increase their involvement in decisions, and place Danish cancer survival among the highest in the Nordic countries.[3]

• Improve follow-up, rehabilitation, prehabilitation and late-effects care so that patients receive support tailored to their physical, psychological, social and practical needs throughout and after treatment.[4][5][6]
• Strengthen palliative care so that people with life-threatening illness receive timely relief from symptoms, participate in decisions about their care, and can remain at home where this is their preference.[7][8]
• Personalise cancer pathways, screening, diagnosis and treatment according to patients’ health, comorbidities, treatment options, circumstances and preferences, while retaining rights to rapid diagnosis and treatment.[9][10]
• Increase prevention and early detection by addressing tobacco, nicotine, alcohol, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and ultraviolet exposure, with particular attention to children, young people and groups less well reached by existing services.[11][12][13]
• Improve screening participation and assess more risk-adapted approaches to cervical, breast and bowel cancer screening, alongside a lung-cancer screening pilot for people at particular risk.[10][14]
• Advance treatment quality, equal access to medicines, research, data use, artificial intelligence and health technology, while maintaining robust hospital cancer capacity.[15][16][17]

The plan responds to rising demand and complexity: nearly 400,000 people in Denmark live with or after cancer, up to 60% experience late effects, and annual cancer cases are projected to be 20% higher in 2044 than in 2021.[18][19]Prevention is a central strategic priority because an estimated 30–50% of cancer cases may be preventable.[3]

Implementation

Implementation combines person-centred clinical pathways, strengthened cross-sector collaboration, national standards, targeted prevention regulation, digital infrastructure, data-driven quality improvement and sustained capacity investment.[19][3][15][17]The Government intends to deliver improvements in cooperation with actors across the health service, including regions, municipalities, hospitals, general practitioners, public authorities, research institutions and relevant private actors.[3][20]Detailed overarching governance arrangements and an implementation timetable for all 36 initiatives are not specified.[20][21]

• Assign general practitioners responsibility for systematic post-hospital follow-up, including a follow-up consultation, assessment of needs and a jointly developed individual plan, particularly supporting patients in vulnerable situations.[21][22]
• Expand rehabilitation capacity and introduce clear local quality requirements, differentiated interventions, repeat referrals where needs change, and requirements for prehabilitation before treatment.[23][24]
• Establish regional late-effects clinics for complex general late effects, while managing milder needs through general practice or rehabilitation and retaining specialist hospital responsibility for condition-specific late effects.[6][25]
• Strengthen basic and specialised palliative care through workforce training, earlier support, hospice places, outreach teams, national referral criteria and incorporation of basic palliative care into the planned general medical clinic function from 2027.[8][26]
• Develop cancer pathways using current evidence and patient preferences, improve transitions between primary, hospital and municipal care, and use patient-reported outcome data and decision-support tools to guide care.[10][27][28]
• Review national screening programmes, improve communication and access for groups with low participation, and evaluate the three-year lung-cancer screening pilot in 2027 after it runs through 2026.[14]
• Build digital solutions that enable relevant professionals to access cancer information across sectors, establish a national diagnostic-centre network and strengthen reporting on cancer stage at diagnosis.[29][30]
• Implement prevention through tobacco and nicotine regulation, retailer restrictions, enforcement against illegal sales, cessation services, alcohol-risk information, solarium safeguards, municipal health action and restrictions on marketing unhealthy food and drink to children.[31][32][33][34][35]
• Use national health data, registers, quality databases and real-world evidence to assess treatment quality, support conditional recommendations for new medicines and improve personalised cancer medicine.[36][37][16][38]
• Provide permanent capacity support for hospital cancer departments, prioritising radiology, pathology and surgery, alongside monitoring of compliance with maximum cancer waiting times.[17]

Monitoring is framed around the three overarching outcomes of post-treatment support, patient involvement and Nordic-comparative survival.[3]Further mechanisms include cancer-pathway monitoring, screening analysis, pilot evaluation, palliative-care data, cancer-stage reporting, quality databases and post-introduction evidence collection for medicines.[8][10][14][30][37]A comprehensive indicator set, reporting schedule and formal accountability framework for the whole plan are not specified.[3][38]

The Government will allocate 600 million Danish kroner annually from 2025 onwards to Cancer Plan V.[1]Complementary investments include 429 million Danish kroner in exceptional regional cancer capacity during 2023–2025, 22 billion Danish kroner for hospital maintenance and modernisation during 2026–2035, and 2 billion Danish kroner for spreading innovative and digital health solutions during 2026–2035.[17][39][37]The health reform also allocates 250 million Danish kroner annually from 2027 for stronger municipal general nursing and quality standards, including basic palliative care, plus 20 million Danish kroner annually in 2027–2029 and 40 million Danish kroner annually from 2030 for specialised regional palliative care.[8][26]

Monitoring & Evaluation

Cancer Plan V links implementation to a small set of overarching outcome areas, strengthened use of data and targeted reviews, but does not provide a single comprehensive indicator framework, reporting cycle or plan-wide accountability structure.[3][19][37]

• Monitor progress against three overarching objectives: improve patients’ experience of post-treatment help and support, increase involvement in decisions, and place Danish cancer survival among the highest in the Nordic countries.[3]
• Improve and systematise data use to identify effective interventions and support continuous quality improvement in cancer care.[19]
• Use national health data, registers and quality databases to assess treatment quality, identify effective practice and evaluate the effects and value of new targeted medicines where evidence remains limited.[36][37]
• Collect and analyse real-world post-introduction data on new cancer medicines under the leadership of the Danish Medicines Council; conditional recommendations may require subsequent data collection on effectiveness.[16][37]
• Establish a national clinical database for personalised cancer medicine to identify which treatments work best for which patients and support safer, more targeted care.[40][38]
• Review monitoring of cancer pathways so that it better reflects individual patient needs, while maintaining monitoring of compliance with maximum cancer waiting-time rules.[10][17]
• Analyse the three national screening programmes using current evidence on target groups, technologies and methods, and evaluate the three-year lung-cancer screening pilot in 2027 after it runs through 2026.[14]
• Strengthen reporting to the national cancer registry on stage distribution and share national data on investigation of non-specific symptoms to support earlier detection.[30]
• Record and use patients’ needs, preferences and patient-reported outcome data throughout pathways to support person-centred planning and quality-of-life assessment.[41][28]
• Strengthen palliative-care data to improve oversight of provision and identify areas for development; national referral criteria are intended to support more consistent access to specialised palliative care.[8]
• Use municipal child and youth health data to set local prevention objectives, supported by a planned national child and youth health profile and regulatory supervision by the Danish Safety Technology Authority.[33][42]
• Specify no consolidated plan-wide performance indicators, numerical targets, reporting timetable, evaluation design, surveillance system or named formal accountability body beyond the individual reviews, data initiatives and enforcement responsibilities described.[3][43][44][16]

Costing & Financing

Cancer Plan V is supported by substantial government allocations for cancer capacity, prevention, hospital modernisation, palliative care, digital innovation and screening, although the supplied material does not provide a fully costed budget for all 36 initiatives or a quantified funding gap.[1][17][45]

• Allocate 600 million Danish kroner annually from 2025 onwards to Cancer Plan V, described as the largest cancer-plan allocation to date in monetary terms.[1]
• Provide 429 million Danish kroner in total during 2023–2025 for an extraordinary increase in regional cancer capacity, alongside unspecified permanent funding for hospital cancer departments.[20][17]
• Establish a 22 billion Danish kroner health fund for 2026–2035 to maintain and modernise hospitals, including buildings and equipment.[20][39]
• Fund prevention-plan initiatives addressing tobacco, nicotine and alcohol at nearly 500 million Danish kroner for 2024–2028, followed by permanent annual funding of 85 million Danish kroner.[46][31]
• Allocate 250 million Danish kroner annually from 2027 for strengthened general nursing in municipalities and cross-cutting quality standards, including basic palliative care; allocate 20 million Danish kroner annually in 2027–2029 and 40 million Danish kroner annually from 2030 for specialised regional palliative care.[8][26]
• Allocate 30 million Danish kroner through the May 2023 New Health Package for the three-year lung-cancer screening pilot, partly financed through Cancer Plan V.[14]
• Invest 2 billion Danish kroner during 2026–2035 in spreading innovative and digital health solutions.[37]
• Fund youth smoking- and nicotine-cessation services through 60 million Danish kroner for 17 projects across 38 municipalities during 2024–2027, and allocate 8 million Danish kroner during 2025–2028 to alcohol-free youth-community initiatives.[13]
• Allocate nearly 5 million Danish kroner to the Danish Cancer Society for development of the Kvit smoking- and nicotine-cessation application.[47][13]
• Provide additional but unquantified funding for rehabilitation, prehabilitation, dental-treatment support, systematic patient involvement, cessation medicines and development of a national child and youth health profile.[23][25][27][33][47]
• Specify no overall cost breakdown for the 36 initiatives, financing sources beyond stated government and health-reform allocations, resource-mobilisation strategy, quantified funding gap or economic assumptions.[1][17][45]