Europe’s Beating Cancer plan – Pre-legislative synthesis of national, regional and local positions on the European Commission proposal

Summary:

EPRS analysis of the positions of partner organisations at European, national, regional and local levels suggests that they would like the following main considerations to be reflected in discussion of the forthcoming Europe's Beating Cancer plan:

• Submissions from all four levels of governance highlight the EU's key role in prevention, including as regards cancer-causing environmental factors and tobacco consumption. Input obtained refers to the active role Europe's local and regional actors can play in putting prevention into practice.
• European and national levels point to predictive diagnostic tools and novel approaches in cancer medicine. Regional actors advocate for closer cooperation between primary care and hospital care in early diagnosis. Both the regional and local levels would like the EU to help improve screening.
• Equitable access to cancer care is featured across all levels. National input raises the issue of availability and affordability of medicines. The local level underscores the merits of ambulatory care, and sees a role for the EU in the creation of local coordination platforms for doctors and patients.
• The European level addresses cancer after-care in the local community and cancer survivorship and rehabilitation. Both the regional and local levels recommend fostering personalised care and follow-up for cancer patients.
• European and national input stresses the importance of EU-wide cancer research cooperation, information sharing and better deployment of (big) data. Attention is drawn to improving information, communication, education and awareness-raising for both the wider public and healthcare professionals, with regional input encouraging the development of new technologies to ease doctor-patient communication.
• All levels would like Europe's Beating Cancer plan to address health inequalities in cancer. EU-level action is considered key to help reduce socioeconomic and geographical disparities, and tackle differences in cancer prevalence and survival rates. A 'health in all policies' approach is supported.

Further information:

This briefing forms part of an EPRS series offering syntheses of the pre-legislative state of play and consultation on key European Commission priorities during the current five-year term. It summarises the state of affairs in the relevant policy field, examines how the existing policy is working on the ground, and, where possible, identifies best practice and ideas for the future on the part of governmental organisations at all levels of European system of multilevel governance.

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