HSE 'would like to get more funding' for cancer strategy, says chief clinical officer

Dr Colm Henry noted that cancer is the leading cause of death accounting for about 29% of all mortalities in 2022, with some 24,500 people diagnosed with invasive cancer each year. File picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

The HSE’s chief clinical officer has admitted it would be “clearly preferable” to receive predictable annual funding for the national cancer strategy on “a consistent basis”, after no additional funding was delivered for 2024.

Dr Colm Henry said that, while the HSE does "a lot" with the funding it gets and measures have been put in place, nevertheless “we would like to get more funding”.

He was reacting at the Oireachtas Health Committee to the news that the HSE had sought €20m in additional funding for the national cancer strategy in last October’s budget but had received nothing in return. That shortfall is part of an overall €1.3bn in under-provision to health services by the Department of Public Expenditure in the most recent budget.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane said the non-delivery of the requested €20m for 2024 summed up the issues facing the cancer strategy “in a nutshell”.

“We put in place strategies for a reason. They are well-researched, based on evidence, and based on what’s needed, and then if they’re not resourced it makes a mockery of those strategies,” he said, adding that if a strategy is not implemented “then it means nothing”.

“Of course you do the best with what you’ve got, that’s what you have to do,” Mr Cullinane added.

Dr Henry noted that cancer is the leading cause of death accounting for about 29% of all mortalities in 2022, with some 24,500 people diagnosed with invasive cancer each year.

He said the estimated cost of implementation of the most recent national cancer strategy in 2017 was an additional €140m in revenue funding by 2026 and that, to date, that figure has increased by €125m. He said the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) had received a budget increase of “nearly €70m” up to 2024.

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Earlier, the Irish Cancer Society said it had no confidence in a likely improvement in Irish cancer survival rates in the coming years — as had been seen between 1998 and 2018 — due to a lack of funding.

Chief executive Averil Power said a number of unmet targets have accumulated due to that lack of funding, including cancer screening having not been expanded as planned, and target waiting times for cancer tests being “consistently exceeded”.

Dr Henry said, however, that “despite challenges... a lot of progress has been made” in implementing the national cancer strategy since 2017. He cited the use of targeted funding within cancer control programmes as having resulted “in real impacts for patient care”.

“We have published numerous national clinical guidelines, pathways and treatment protocols to support front-line care,” he said by way of example, adding that the national cancer information system is now live in 18 of 26 hospitals around the country.

The HSE did acknowledge that there is a crisis in the recruitment of radiotherapists at present, following the assertion by the cancer society that “expensive equipment (is) lying idle in several hospitals” due to that shortage.

Professor Risteard O Laoide, national director of the NCCP, said the shortfall of those workers is between 30% and 35% at present, a trend blamed earlier at committee on issues surrounding inadequate remuneration for qualified radiotherapists.