Professor M. John Kennedy:

Preparation for the next strategy should probably begin before the end of this year and into next year, with a view to putting together the plans for that and people to write the report. Writing the report itself, from my experience, took about two and a half years. Well, the report was written but it took two and a half years for it to come out the other side. Unfortunately many of the issues that are brought up in this report as being in need of serious attention will continue to be issues that will be in need of serious attention in the next cancer strategy. They relate to the increasing population, the inadequate infrastructure and difficulties with recruiting staff. They will probably not change greatly. We got a lot of the basics right over the last three cancer strategies but we need to focus on implementation, multi-annual funding, planning and an understanding that the population is not going to fall. We are not going to have less cancer so in the next strategy we have to prepare to do the things that have not been done. It may well look rather similar to this one because of the fact that these problems are continuing and that they have not been funded to be addressed in the way that has been mandated by the original strategy and has not been delivered.