Two years after the launch of the Government's Cancer Control Action Plan, detection and access to treatment remain "uncoordinated and ad hoc" throughout New Zealand, says the Cancer Society.
Society chief executive Dalton Kelly said yesterday's report by the Health Ministry's Cancer Control Council showed it was doing "a very good job of monitoring what progress has occurred".
"But what is the point of detecting cancer if we don't have the people, equipment and medicines to treat it?
"Simply monitoring on its own is not going to achieve any results."
The council was "hamstrung" because it had no authority or independence to implement the action plan, he said.
Decision-making and funding control remained in the hands of district health boards.
"What this report shows is that despite the Government's priority objective of reducing the incidence and impact of cancer, its failure to provide any particular body with the responsibility to lead, coordinate and drive the action plan means that very little has, in reality, been achieved."
The effect on patients was that children with cancer were being sent to hospitals in different regions and women with breast cancer were sent to Australia for radiation treatment, while others were being treated with "a truncated, unproven course of Herceptin while desperately raising funds to personally fund the extended course".
Mr Kelly said it was "intolerable" that nine years after the need was identified, cancer patients in the Wellington region were still waiting for a third radiation machine.
The $5 million linear accelerator, which fires a beam to destroy tumours, cannot be installed till the ministry and DHBs decide who will pay an estimated shortfall of $500,000 in treatment funding.
Nursing shortages and the number of radiation therapists and specialists leaving the country highlighted a lack of workforce planning.
Health Minister Pete Hodgson said "good progress" was being made toward reducing the burden of cancer - but there was more work to be done.
About 70 per cent of the milestones in the first phase of the action plan had been achieved or were in progress, particularly under the goals of cancer prevention, screening and early detection.
However, the report highlighted "uneven" progress on goals for diagnosis and treatment, improving quality of life for people with cancer, service delivery, research and surveillance.
Mr Hodgson welcomed the fact that several district health boards were building capacity and capability of the cancer nursing workforce. Work was also under way to develop a national education and training framework for cancer and palliative care nursing.
"There are many good initiatives happening at a local level, and within particular district health boards," he said.
"The challenge now is to make sure these are taken up consistently across New Zealand."
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