Delays in lung cancer care addressed in new policy brief on timed targets

Untimely lung cancer care has serious consequences. It reduces survival, limits treatment options and causes significant distress.

Our new policy brief, Timeliness matters: improving lung cancer care with timed targets, highlights the urgent need to reduce delays in diagnosis, treatment and care – and proposes timed targets as a solution.

Timed targets set time frames for diagnosis, treatment and other aspects of care, and are a practical way to improve outcomes and accountability. While they are used in many health systems, they are often inconsistently defined, poorly implemented or not met.

Countries use different definitions and measurements of timeliness – and only a few national audits have examined lung cancer care in detail. So greater international alignment on how timeliness is defined and measured – as well as improved data collection and accountability mechanisms – are needed to support target implementation.

Our policy brief draws on a review of the literature, insights from Network members and other experts, and case studies from Australia, Brazil, England, Malaysia, Serbia and South Korea. It outlines how delivering timely lung cancer care requires health systems to determine who experiences untimely care and why, remove system-level barriers to timely care, and build policy frameworks that make improvement sustainable.

The report also provides recommendations for policymakers and health system decision-makers to improve the development and implementation of timed targets by:

• gathering data about people’s experiences of lung cancer care to inform realistic targets
• strengthening health system organisation to reduce delays
• establishing supportive policy frameworks to enable implementation.

By setting clear expectations, investing in system capacity and monitoring performance, countries can reduce delays and deliver more equitable, effective care for people with lung cancer.

Download the policy brief