Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare services in the field of cancer treatment and prevention (CoPaK)

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health care system has changed significantly, which has affected the way services are provided, the utilisation of health services and treatments.

It has been reported that patients have avoided contact with the healthcare system due to concerns about infection and cancer screenings have been less frequent. The treatment of cancer patients was also affected, e.g. by the interruption of ongoing chemotherapy or the postponement of operations. These changes were mainly due to individual risk assessments and pandemic-related concerns.

To meet these challenges, healthcare organisations had to develop different strategies. At the time the project was conceived (mid-2020), little was known about which strategies existed and what impact they had.

The CoPaK project analysed strategies developed by health care systems in response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

The perceptions and expectations of healthcare professionals and care users were determined, decision-making processes reconstructed and good practice approaches identified. An overview of existing guidelines for dealing with pandemics in the field of cancer treatment and prevention was compiled. This serves as the basis for a planned project proposal, the aim of which is to conduct an in-depth survey of care providers in the field of cancer treatment and prevention in order to review the usability of strategies developed to date and identify optimisation potential for future guidelines.