Developing Policy Recommendations

Workstream 3 is designed to develop and articulate policy recommendations and guidelines on cancer screening in Europe and ensure that Member States will make progress in the implementation of the EU Council recommendation on cancer screening adopted in 2021. 

To ensure the goals of the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan on cancer screening under the next European Commission 2024-2029, ECO includes a set of recommendations for both European and National policymakers in Time to Accelerate. These include:

• Raise awareness of the EU Council recommendations on cancer screening and their content at national level in order to stimulate political action for their achievement and support member states in their implementation and development of national cancer screening strategies by highlighting and sharing successes and improvements in screening policy and outcomes when they occur;
• Provide support for new screening research efforts including behavioural insights, inequalities in access to and participation in screening, health economics of screening and screening methodologies for other cancers such as skin and liver cancer;
• Facilitate the process, the use of and support research into the early detection of multiple cancers so that all countries provide a robust data infrastructure associated with screening programmes and common standards to enable ready support for the research agenda related to the use of liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer and multiple cancer early detection tests more generally.

Further recommendations are intended to be developed during the Time to Accelerate: for Cancer Screening campaign. They will then be first elaborated in collaboration with experts in the field in order to develop policies that can be adopted at EU level, promoting effectiveness and equity in cancer screening.

Recommendations will be based on the critical analysis of the cancer screening Index and the decision-making process will be guided by a participatory approach, involving key policymakers. Key stakeholders such as representatives of health care institutions, non-governmental organisations, and other influential actors in the public health arena will be involved.

Background

ECO has been working to align national screening plans and support the European Union's efforts to implement cancer screening as defined by Europe's Beating Cancer Plan.

The pan-European campaign Time to Accelerate: for Cancer Screening includes dialogue with relevant national and European policy makers to secure their commitment in this regard. ECO will use its role as facilitator to create synergies where possible and establish uniform policy recommendations.

Time to Accelerate: for Cancer Screening will include the organisation of high-level panels of experts, patient representatives, policymakers and institutional representatives where best practices and evidence will be presented together with data and research collected in the Cancer Screening Implementation Policy Index that will serve as a guide for policy makers to guide and influence them to ensure progress in access, performance and research in cancer screening.