The following is a summary of the full outcomes report, which is available for download.

On Thursday 4 October 2018, All.Can hosted its second session at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG).

The session, entitled ‘Patient insights for sustainable care – improving efficiency in care for all’ focused on themes emerging from the All.Can patient survey, which has been running throughout 2018. Kathy Oliver, All.Can member and co-founder of the International Brain Tumour Alliance, moderated the session.

Lieve Wierinck MEP gave a keynote introduction by video, in which she highlighted the importance of improving efficiency in cancer care. Daniel Ratchford of Quality Health then explained how his organisation has been disseminating the international survey, and presented interim findings. The survey asks current and former cancer patients (and carers) about inefficiencies they have encountered in their care, and where care could have been improved. Four key themes were highlighted:

  • Diagnosis
  • Lack of psychological support
  • Time and timing
  • Financial toxicity.

The session then broke into groups for a workshop, where each group was asked to consider a real patient quote from the survey that represented one of the four themes. They were tasked with finding practical solutions to the problems raised by patients, and were then given two minutes to ‘pitch’ their ideas as if talking to policymakers or other key decision-makers.

Following the group presentations, there were responses and additional insights from the panel. Members of the panel were:

  • Stefan Gijssels, EuropaColon
  • Yolande Lievens, European CanCer Organisation (ECCO) and European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO)
  • Dirk Van den Steen, DG SANTE
  • Zeger Vercouteren, Johnson & Johnson
  • Xavier Franz, Varian Medical Systems.

Both the group workshop and the panel discussion raised some interesting ideas about how patient-identified inefficiencies can be tackled to improve cancer care. All.Can will be taking the thoughts and recommendations generated from the session, and integrating them into our policy implementation phase of work in 2019 and beyond.

The full outcomes report can be downloaded here.

Further resources: