Funding gap threat to cancer survival rates

PWB3HR Patient receiving chemotherapy at the hospital

Cancer survival rates in Ireland are unlikely to improve due to the current rate of underfunding, according to the Irish Cancer Society.

Addressing the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday, the charity's chief executive Averil Power noted that since the last iteration of Ireland’s national cancer strategy was introduced in 2017, just two of the subsequent budgets – in 2021 and 2022 - have provided “proper funding” for its implementation.

In 2024, an additional €20m was requested by the HSE for the national cnacer strategy. That funding was not provided. 

The current cancer care strategy was launched in 2017 by new Taoiseach Simon Harris during his stint as health minister. 

Ms Power told the committee that at the current rate of funding the most recent strategy, Ireland's third, will be the first to fail in its goals of easing the burden of cancer on society since those national plans were first introduced in the 1990s.

Previously, Ireland’s five-year survival rate for a cancer diagnosis had improved from 44% in 1998 to 65% in 2018 following the implementation of the first two strategies.

Asked whether it was the case that her organisation has no confidence that cancer survival rates in Ireland will improve in the coming years at the current rate of funding, Ms Power replied that she was “really sad” to be making that statement.

“People are not being given the best possible chance,” she said, adding that she was “conscious of what it means for an organisation like ours to say we don’t have hope or we don’t have faith”.

“We don’t have the basis for faith in improvement as was seen in the previous strategies,” she said.

“That is our feeling, that is what we need to bring to your attention. It is a prediction rather than reality; the only way it won’t become reality is if we get the significant investment needed to get the strategy back on track.

Averil Power, CEO of the Irish Cancer Society

“Without funding the national cancer strategy is a plan without action. And a plan without action is not a plan, it is just words. Words are no comfort to someone languishing on a waiting list for a cancer test”.

Irish Cancer Society chair Professor John Kennedy, the medical oncologist who chaired the 2017 national cancer strategy, said that Ireland needs to “focus on implementation”.

“The population isn’t going to fall; we’re not going to have less cancer,” he said.

He described Ireland consistently missing its target of 6% of cancer patients participating in clinical trials as a “disgrace”.

“We should easily be able to get from 6% up to 10%. We have done so much to make that impossible,” he said.

Ms Power said that at the current rate of population and life expectancy growth, the number of cancer cases in Ireland will double by 2045.

Prof Kennedy said that “the biggest problem is the recruitment and retention of staff”, and said he “totally” agrees that there is an issue at present with the provision of radiotherapy due to inadequate remuneration for staff.

The levels of people with with radiotherapy requirements not being seen within the health system within the targeted timeframes has increased from 2 in 10 to 4 in 10 over the past five years, Ms Power said.

She added that the Irish Cancer Society has “evidence that 2 out of 5 people have put off going to their GP with cancer symptoms because they couldn’t afford it”.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane called on the Taoiseach to “live up to commitments” he had previously made as Minister for Health for the funding of the cancer strategy.

“When we said that (the budget) would have consequences for patients, we were not being dramatic. We are seeing those consequences now,” he said, adding that not funding the cancer strategy “is having serious consequences for patient safety”.