With five new cancer patients diagnosed every minute in Europe, experts estimate that the region will see a shortage of 4.1 million healthcare workers by 2030. This will put significant pressure on oncology care, resulting in delayed diagnoses and poorer health outcomes for patients, more pressurised staff and the subsequent impact on mental health, and as well as an increasing number of staff shortages and longer waiting lists – all impacting on the ability to provide stable cancer services and putting at risk the Europe Cancer Mission goal to save 3mio lives by 2030.
In this report we describe three root causes driving the gap between the needs of European patients and the capacity of the cancer care workforce to deliver:
It also shows how Covid-19 has exacerbated the issues, for example, through delayed access to screening and diagnosis for patients. For staff, the pandemic also meant that the effort and time it took to treat patients increased, with staff also facing the challenges of high infection rates and burnout.
Innovation can make cancer care more sustainable. And there is a critical need to make cancer care more sustainable.
We identified ten case studies of innovative practice in cancer care across Europe, which if adopted at scale could bring substantial benefit to patients and health systems in all Member States. Of the ten case studies, four were selected to analyse the potential to scale up and roll out these practices more widely, and the benefits for patients and health professionals.These include:
Innovation holds the potential to reduce oncology demand, increase care efficiency, and retain healthcare workers to ensure our healthcare system is able to deliver the care that we need to deliver. Only by redesigning the way in which we deliver cancer care, we can allow for ongoing advances in patient outcomes, continued improvements in long-term affordability of and equal access to quality care. We believe the time has come to take a fresh look at cancer care. We believe in the power of innovation and collaboration to transform cancer care for the benefit of all.
This report was commissioned and financed by the EFPIA Oncology Platform.