Three years of improvements in cancer control
Facing the growing challenge of cancer
One person in Ontario gets diagnosed with cancer every eight
minutes. By the time you have read this plan cover to cover, several
people will have learned they have cancer and their lives will have
been altered drastically in that moment of truth. In 10 years, as the
province’s population grows and ages, a new diagnosis of cancer will
occur every six minutes. Cancer is projected to soon surpass
cardiovascular disease to become the leading cause of death in Canada.
"Chronic disease management is one of our big challenges as a health
system and as a society. If you get the Ontario Cancer Plan right, you
should improve the care journey not only of cancer patients, but of
those with heart disease, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease),
and numerous other conditions."
André Picard, Public Health Reporter, The Globe and Mail
At the same time, more and more Ontarians are surviving cancer with
every passing year because of more effective treatments and early
detection. As a result, many cancers are now being managed like chronic
conditions. This hopeful news brings with it new challenges in terms of
resources and services needed to meet the ongoing needs of people
living with and beyond cancer.
A challenge we can meet together
There is a tremendous opportunity to transform Ontario’s cancer
system. We first began to seize this opportunity in 2004, when Cancer
Care Ontario, in consultation with the Ontario government and
healthcare professionals and organizations across the province, created
the first Ontario Cancer Plan.
The first of its kind in Canada, the Ontario Cancer Plan was a
detailed and practical roadmap for how the stakeholders in the province
could best work together to prevent cancer and provide care for cancer
patients. At the time the plan was created, Ontario’s cancer system had
just been reorganized in the aftermath of a 2001 crisis that saw public
confidence in the system decline because of long wait times and poor
access to services, particularly to radiation therapy.
But armed with a clear strategy and a shared commitment to act, we have made important progress over the last three years.
Between 2004 and 2007, Ontario has worked hard to build up its
capacity to meet the growing needs of cancer patients. Radiation wait
times in the province went down 31% between 2003 and 2006, while
surgery wait times were reduced by 16% in the first 18 months since
they were reported publicly in August 2005. During the same period, we
have seen more cancer centres being built, expanded, and committed to
than ever before in Ontario.
We have witnessed a number of firsts in cancer prevention and
detection, namely the Smoke-Free Ontario Act and the province-wide
colorectal cancer screening program, ColonCancerCheck. And after many
years of operating in a state of statistical and quantitative
ambiguity, Ontario now has a system for measuring, managing and
reporting on the performance of our cancer system. This knowledge is
transforming our ability to plan and manage patients’ treatment, and to
keep the public informed about the quality of cancer services they rely
on.
An ambitious but practical strategy
The 2008-2011 Ontario Cancer Plan is designed to transform Ontario’s
good cancer system into a great system that will give all Ontarians –
no matter where they live, what language they speak, and what income
they make – access to high-quality, timely, and patient-focused cancer
care. While this new plan is ambitious, it is also practical, focused
and entirely possible.
The plan is organized around six goals that span the continuum for cancer care:
1. Reduce the incidence of cancer
2. Reduce the impact of cancer through effective screening and earlier detection
3. Ensure timely access to effective diagnosis and high-quality cancer care
4. Improve the patient experience along every step of the cancer journey
5. Improve the performance of Ontario’s cancer system
6. Strengthen Ontario’s ability to translate cancer research into improvements in cancer services and control
Each goal is supported by initiatives that need to come to fruition
if the province is to meet Cancer Care Ontario’s ambition of creating
the best cancer system in the world. And, of these, four key
initiatives are central to achieving the plan:
1. Transform how we screen for cancer
2. Streamline and speed up cancer diagnosis
3. Continue to develop Regional Cancer Programs to deliver consistently high-quality services across the province
4. Prepare our services to respond to and make best use of the discoveries in molecular oncology