Acute Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist

The Acute Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist plays a key role in the acute oncology team, working in collaboration with the rest of the team to deliver a highly effective, specialist service for patients. The service will provide early input of specialist care enabling:

• Faster and better care of patients with complications of chemotherapy, including early recognition of symptoms, better treatments, and facilitating early discharge.
• Faster and better care of patients with complications of cancer, facilitating a rapid referral on to the specialist oncology team/specialist palliative care team.
• The appropriate investigation of patients who may benefit from treatment for cancer of unknown primary (CUP), including rapid triage and targeted investigations into specialist oncology/specialist palliative care.
• Give advice and implement patient care in an area which requires specific clinical knowledge, skills, and experience.
• Work alongside other clinical colleagues in oncology, palliative care, the emergency floor, acute medicine, radiology, and pathology to ensure quality of care to the patients is maximized. This will include the development of clinical guidelines & education programmes.
• Assess, plan, implement, and evaluate programmes of care in collaboration with the lead nurse, referring on to other specialist disciplines.
• Receives referrals from general practitioners, district nurses, community Macmillan nurses, and hospital staff. Makes referrals to general practitioners, district nurses, community Macmillan nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers.
• Works in collaboration with others in order to ensure a seamless transition for patients by attending multi-disciplinary meetings and contributing to case management by influencing decision-making to optimize health outcomes by acting as a highly specialist resource.
• Provides and receives highly complex, sensitive information and uses developed interpersonal and communication skills such as would be required within a highly emotive atmosphere.
• Influences clinical decisions regarding service delivery by acting as a highly specialist resource and provides highly specialist clinical advice to all members of the multidisciplinary team.