Overview of Cancer Services in Ireland

• Demographic changes will drive the incidence of cancer, and subsequently, will increase the level of investment required for cancer care over the coming years. In addition, the high cost of new effective medicines, price inflation, potential future policy changes to expand and improve services, and public sector pay agreements will also drive the level of investment required.
• The structure and delivery of cancer services are highly centralised, primarily being organised and delivered through the Health Service Executive. However, others such as General Practitioners and voluntary agencies also play an important role in the delivery of services.

Cancer Care Spending in Ireland

• Investment will be required to maintain existing levels of services and quality, and to expand and develop cancer services as per the National Cancer Strategy 2017-2026.
• No official aggregate data on public health spending on cancer is available in Ireland. It is estimated that spending exceeds one billion euro.
• It is not possible to determine the total level of investment in, or spending on, cancer services or the various elements of service provision. This presents challenges in examining the overall national level of spending on cancer care.

P.15 The HSE delivers a range of public health communication campaigns with a view to improving the health of the population. These campaigns are educational in nature and involve advertising across a range of mediums to make the public aware of certain actions they can take or reduce to protect and improve their health. Many of these campaigns focus on cancer prevention through a range of healthy behaviours (e.g., quitting cigarette smoking, reducing or stopping alcohol consumption) and screening, either directly or indirectly. The intention of these information campaigns is to raise awareness around the health impacts of different behaviours or to increase education amongst the public, with the aim of identifying the potential development of cancer early on. Identifying early development benefits the public healthcare system and patients as it is more cost effective to intervene at an early stage and leads to better patient outcomes. Further details on these campaigns can be found in table 2 of the report.

P.32 In Ireland, the incidence of cancer has been increasing over recent years. This has been attributed to a number of causes, including:

• Demographic change, including population growth and population ageing,
• Increases in risk factors (e.g., obesity, alcohol consumption, ultraviolet radiation exposure), and
• The impact of screening.

Other risk factors include smoking, diet and nutrition, low levels of physical activity, inherited predisposition, and social deprivation, among others can contribute to incidence rates.58,59 It is estimated that an average of 43,470 cancers were diagnosed in Ireland during 2018-2020...