News from the Danish Cancer Society

On a national level, the Danish Government earlier this year released ‘Cancerplan 4’ with 16 specific focus areas and three national goals:

In 2020: 90 pct. of all Danish cancer patients will experience one ‘patient responsible doctor’, who ensures coherence and safety during treatment.

In 2025: Cancer survival in Denmark will be at the same level as in our neighboring Nordic countries

In 2030: We will experience the first generation of nonsmoking children and adolescents in Denmark

In addition, a Danish Comprehensive Cancer Center is about to be established. It is one of the largest professional wagers ever in cancer research in Denmark. The Danish Cancer Society will contribute financially to the new initiative and the hope is to get new treatments faster to patients all around Denmark.

At a local level, The Cancer Information Service has undergone a successful change in the system that operates our telephone and chat. We have gotten rid of several technical issues and bugs. The new system has many new features and is easy to manage and above all, it allows us to handle more users than before.

Finally, some examples of how being part of the ICISG network has been beneficial for us.

Under my stay during the WCC in Melbourne in 2014, I visited colleagues at Cancer Council Victoria and first heard about their ‘Holiday Break Program’. It was very inspirational and we decided to try it out in Denmark. For the past two years, The Danish Cancer Society has facilitated the possibility for people affected by cancer to spend time in summerhouses around Denmark, which the owners donate free of charge. It has turned out to be a great success, and we are now expanding the service.

Our colleagues in Norway have told us how they successfully used volunteer lawyers in addition to their hired staff at the CIS. In order to help cancer patients better in legal matters we are now starting up a similar project in Denmark. The upstart has been very promising, as many volunteers have already shown interest in the project.

The joint project completed last year by colleagues at ACS, Cancer Research UK and Cancer Council Victoria has inspired us. We are about to finish a user survey in relation to our telephone service, and in addition to the online survey intend to ask some of our users about the long-term effects of using the CIS.

Submitted by: Chris Donkin, Cancer Hotline Manager; Danish Cancer Society