On Tuesday 22 June 2021, Digestive Cancers Europe was pleased to welcome over 100 participants to our event that assessed the impact of COVID-19 on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening programmes across Europe. It explored how these practices could be improved for them to run uninterrupted during any future such crises. The event materials are available on the EU Health Policy Platform – for information on how to access please see below.

About the event – CRC Screening and COVID-19

The main asks resulting from the meeting for the European Commission were to:

• Set up a common platform for screening agencies to share best practice and learn from one another
• Monitor, in partnership with all stakeholders, EU Member States’ Colorectal Cancer screening results
• Encourage Member States to invest in CRC screening particularly in the areas of annual inputs and outcome metrics and in technologies and human resources required to make CRC screening effective and efficient

The event also marked the launch of the DiCE led ‘Stakeholder Network on CRC Screening in the European Union’. A continuation of its Thematic Network on this topic, the network will continue this year to strengthen the call from our Joint Statement on CRC Screening in the EU. This statement outlines the essential necessity for CRC screening programmes to become an efficient part of all European healthcare systems – because with them we can save some 100,000 lives per year from this often devastating digestive cancer.

For those yet to become a part of this important network, we encourage you to join us. Here you can join the Network and access its resources including the event presentations in the Network’s library. Please note: for this you will need to have an ‘EU login’. If you are yet to have an EU login you can find out how using these instructions.

We were pleased to see a great willingness among key stakeholders at regional, national and European level to continue the sharing of ideas in a more formal way, and we are determined to repeat the effort again in the future, within the framework of the EU Health Policy Platform. Thank you again to all those who participated and to the excellent speakers!

If you have questions about the event or the network please contact us.