Aims:
The Australian Cancer Plan (the Plan) is Australia’s first national cancer control plan: a shared 10-year framework to improve cancer outcomes and experiences for all Australians, with a strong focus on equity. This evaluation assessed progress towards its 2-year goals, early system-level effects, and priorities to strengthen implementation towards its 5- and 10-year horizons, in line with the Plan’s Monitoring and Evaluation framework.
Methods:
Cancer Australia led the evaluation using a hybrid model with an external team. A convergent mixed methods design drew on implementation and monitoring data, an open stakeholder survey (57 responses) and 39 consultations with 67 stakeholders, purposefully selected to cover governments, implementation partners, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and consumers. Data were collected January — March 2026, thematically analysed and triangulated across quantitative and qualitative sources.
Results:
Substantial implementation activity was underway across all six Strategic Objectives, with 333 initiatives reported nationally.
The Plan is operating as a unifying, authorising framework, strengthening alignment, collaboration, coordinated policy and investment across the sector. A distributed implementation model has been established, including 35 implementation partnerships and advisory structures.
Foundational infrastructure includes the National Optimal Care Pathways Framework, National Framework for Genomics in Cancer Control, National Cancer Data Framework, the Australian Comprehensive Cancer Network, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led initiatives.
Elevation of equity was the most consistent finding, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer outcomes increasingly recognised as a shared system-wide priority. Service- and patient-level change was less visible, consistent with expected lags between system reform and frontline change.
Conclusions:
Two years in, the Plan has established credible foundations for long-term reform. The next phase should focus on implementation at scale, clearer roles and accountability, workforce and data capability, sustained investment, and operationalising equity, to translate system-level progress into measurable improvements in outcomes and experiences.