Improving cancer outcomes through better cancer data in Poland

Based on NFZ published aggregate data, the public spending on cancer care in Poland was 6.3 billion PLN in 2011 (or approximately 10% of total public health spending). Poland is one of the few large countries in the world that has two centralised and public data sources for cancer, namely the National Cancer Registry (NCR, pol. Krajowy Rejestr Nowotworów – KRN) and activity expenditure database run by the National Health Fund (NFZ, pol. Narodowy Fundusz Zdrowia). We show in our article that having a population-based registry and a complete treatment/clinical care dataset is a necessary condition to have a useful cancer strategy data set that can in turn lead to evidence based health policies in the area of cancer. Lack of audited and publicly available cancer data means that a coherent cancer strategy, assessing service provision and cost effectiveness of treatments and monitoring outcomes is, in our opinion, currently not possible in Poland. We postulate that Poland should create a task force to create cancer data strategy based on NCIN (National Cancer Intelligence Network) in the UK or Cancer Australia.