Priorities for action in the NSW Cancer Plan 2011–15
The NSW Cancer Plan 2011–15 has been put together through extensive statewide consultation. It represents a comprehensive blueprint for how stakeholders can work together so fewer people will get cancer, patients can receive the highest standard of care and outcomes are equitable across all groups.
The plan is organised around the goals for cancer control articulated in the Cancer Institute (NSW) Act 2003. While there have been actions and achievements in all these goals in the past, important challenges remain. Each goal is underpinned by a series of tightly focused key objectives and clear strategies to advance them. Key leaders and collaborators who are responsible for cancer care in NSW will work collectively to achieve the full potential of this plan.
The priorities for action for this plan are:
To reduce the incidence of cancer
- Reduce smoking prevalence.
- Reduce over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation by behaviour modification.
- Create environments that promote healthy lifestyles and policy to support these directions.
- Encourage participation in current screening programs where pre-cancerous lesions can be detected.
To increase survival with cancer
- Encourage participation in current screening programs where early detection of cancer improves survival (breast, cervical and bowel cancer) with more effective engagement of potential participants.
- Improve earlier diagnosis of cancer by improving awareness of symptoms that may herald cancer.
- Reduce variations in cancer outcomes in NSW by providing timely feedback of quality information to drive systems improvement, and by providing information on performance of the cancer system to health services, practitioners and the community.
- Reduce the gap between established best evidence, and the care actually provided by defining areas where reducing this gap will improve outcomes.
- Provide support for a sustainable high-performing workforce by developing and supporting systems to sustain life-long learning, and by investing in research to facilitate uptake of new evidence into clinical practice.
- Improve models of service delivery.
- Embedding health services research in cancer care.
To improve the quality of life for people with cancer and their carers
- Improve assessment and response to the needs of people affected by cancer, in patient-centred health systems.
Underpinning these initiatives will be
- A focus on improving cancer outcomes for Aboriginal people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and people in rural and remote NSW.
- A reporting cycle on the performance of cancer services.
- Greater system-wide engagement with primary care.
- Enhanced research capabilities with an emphasis on clinical trials, translational research and the more rapid uptake of new evidence into practice.
