ESIP gives its feedback to the Roadmap on Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan

The European Commission recently published a roadmap outlining the main aspects of the future Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. ESIP welcomes this initiative as a way to raise the profile of health at EU level and gave its feedback to the roadmap.

There is potential of bringing real EU added value by taking a holistic approach. Implementing a “Health in all policies” approach requires including all policy fields, including agriculture, environment, industry, employment and education. As health and social insurers have a direct role to play in each of the five fields of action, we call on the Commission to include statutory social security representatives in their future targeted consultations.

We agree that prevention is the easiest and most effective way of reducing cancer and stress the importance of education, as well as EU actions to improve health and safety in the workplace .Digital tools can have an added value, but we should also address the digital divide to avoid increasing inequalities.

Early detection and diagnosis are also of importance, and the support of the EU has allowed the development of high-quality national screening programmes. Yet these should be extended to other cancers if there is sufficient evidence of their effectiveness.

In terms of treatment and care, ESIP would like to stress the need to ensure the improvement of the quality, availability and access to affordable cancer treatment. Affordability should particularly be addressed in the Cancer Plan and related initiatives in health such as the EU’s pharmaceutical strategy. Socio-economic and geographical inequalities in patient access also need to be tackled.

Attention should be paid to the quality of life of patients and informal carers, as well as their work-life balance, while effective rehabilitation and return to work strategies can bring support for their inclusion in the labour market.  

Find out more in our feedback to the consultation.