‘Enormous pressure’ on healthcare if rising cancer diagnosis trend continues
Friday, 3 July 2026
The healthcare system will be placed under “enormous pressure” if projections of a 50% rise in cancer diagnoses over the next two decades materialise, Cancer Control Agency chief executive Nicola Hill says.
A refresh of the New Zealand Cancer Action Plan released exclusively to The Post is in response to forecasts estimating more than 45,000 New Zealanders a year will be diagnosed with cancer by 2044, driven by an ageing and growing population. In 2025, 30,000 people were expected to get cancer.
“If we keep doing things in the same way, we don't have the facilities or the workforce to address those numbers of people in a way that would make their experience a good one,” said Hill.
The three-year action plan - from 2026 to 2029 - was published by the Cancer Control Agency and hoped to drive numbers down by setting the foundation for new cancer investment in future Budgets.
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Health Minster Simeon Brown told The Post the Government would back the plan with the investment and focus needed to ensure it was delivered, saying the Government was committed to improving cancer outcomes for all New Zealanders.
‘Do better,’ report says
New Zealand continues to lag behind comparable countries in timely cancer diagnosis.
The document called for the health system to “do better” with high rates of cancer diagnoses following emergency admissions in New Zealand, variation between geographical regions and inequities between population groups.
Cancer remains the leading cause of death for people in New Zealand, with 10,566 people dying from cancer in 2021, the report stated.
While the number of deaths is continually increasing, the overall mortality rate is decreasing.
However, the country’s cancer survival rates continue to lag behind other high-income countries.
Five cancer types cause half of all cancer deaths in New Zealand. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, followed by bowel, prostate, breast and pancreatic cancers.
Health NZ research shows more people diagnosed with cancer are living longer, with the proportion alive five years after diagnosis increasing from 58% in 1998-99 to 68% in 2020-21 across all cancer types.
This is a result of earlier detection - mainly through national screening programmes - and greater access to more effective treatments, including advances in surgery, radiation therapy and systemic therapies.
The overall risk of getting cancer has been on a slow decline for decades, but it is beginning to level off.
Key actions in the plan include the Cancer Control Agency developing a cervical cancer elimination plan, which would have a goal of eliminating cervical cancer entirely.
Improving screening programmes included extending breast cancer screening to 70 to 74-year-olds and lowering bowel screening ages to 58 and 59-year-olds.
Future screening options included prostate cancer screening and a potential lung cancer screening programme.
A revision of the National Travel Assistance scheme which covers travel costs for cancer patients would support equitable access, regardless of location.
The plan called for training for improved access to quality cancer treatment and palliative care, improved cancer data, building national genomics capacity, improving cancer research, addressing risk factors such as smoking and poor diet and exploring AI.
A workforce under strain
The report states a shortage of workers across a range of disciplines putting a workforce under strain.
With a sharp rise in the number of people being diagnosed , the document stressed the importance of workforce planning, and called specifically for training of more nurse endoscopists and colposcopists.
Hill said increasing the cancer workforce was a clear priority. “It's something that's a challenge that's being grappled with by countries all around the world, all competing for a fairly sparse resource.”
With a limited pool of cancer health professionals worldwide, she said its focus was increasing the skills of existing practitioners.
The Health Workforce Plan 2024 is referenced in the plan, which looks to expand in specialist cancer nursing roles and establish advanced scopes of practice across a number of allied health professions such as the radiation therapy workforce.
Past investments
Investments over the past three years include funding 33 new cancer medicines through a $604 million lift in Pharmac’s medicine budget is estimated to benefit more than 200,000 New Zealanders.
To deliver the additional treatments, $210m million has been invested to expand infusion services, upgrade facilities and grow the workforce.
The Diagnostic Plan will invest $65 million to expand access to critical diagnostic procedures, including MRI scans, colonoscopies, and colposcopies, helping to reduce wait times and improve access.
An investment of $11.7mn will fund critical cancer infrastructure, including upgrades to treatment facilities, increased radiation oncology capacity, and improved geographical access through new linear accelerators (LINACs).
The breast cancer screening age is being extended, with $31.2m funded to expand screening to women aged 70-74 years, while $36.1m is being invested to lower the the bowel screening aged to 58 years.
An extra $27.1m is being invested to expand stem cell transplant services to improve national capacity to meet demand.
Brown says delivering the basics ‘critical’
In the plan’s foreword, Brown said despite sustained investment in screening, diagnostics and treatment had seen important improvements in cancer survival, but numbers continued to rise.
Brown said action was being taken across the full cancer pathway: prevention, screening, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship and palliative care.
It was critical the cancer system continued to deliver the basics, adapt and innovate to meet the needs of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead, he said.