Bringing the patient voice into national cancer reporting
The Australian Real World Cancer Evidence Network, or Pan Cancer Initiative, is a partnership between Movember, Cancer Australia and the Australian Government. Insights from stakeholder consultations, a patient-reported measures scoping exercise and a comprehensive literature review informed a structured, multi-round Delphi process involving healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers and people with lived experience of cancer. This ensured a broad range of perspectives helped determine what should matter most in national reporting.
Consensus was reached on eight outcome domains, six experience domains and an open-text field where patients can raise the issues most important to them. Together, these form a nationally agreed Core Outcome Set covering the outcomes and experiences that matter across cancer types, alongside recommended patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) to support consistent measurement.
For cancer nurses, this work is particularly relevant. PROMs and PREMs can bring patients’ symptoms, quality of life, concerns and experiences directly into care, supporting better conversations and earlier identification of unmet needs while also helping services understand where care can improve. A COS Alignment Toolkit will be launched at the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting in November 2026 to support adoption across the cancer sector.
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