14 May 2020
This week it seemed fitting to be celebrating International Nurses Day at a time when nursing has never been more appreciated. Although in the UK the day to day functioning of healthcare is still very deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic there seems to be some breathing space to take stock and try and balance this with some normality. With this in mind UKONS are moving this Breaking News bulletin back to every two weeks instead of weekly. We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the help of Macmillan in helping us maintain our weekly ‘COVID-19’ resource special editions of Breaking News over the last 6 weeks. We are not yet out of the woods of course and, if necessary, we will respond to any resurgence of the pandemic with increasing the frequency of breaking news in order to keep our members informed and prepared.
Throughout this pandemic UKONS Board Members and our specialist MIG groups have continued to stay in touch with each other and continue to function to represent the interests of oncology nurses across the UK and the full range of specialties. UKONS biggest educational event of the year is, of course, our conference which in 2020 was scheduled to run in Belfast on 20-21st November. In the last few days we have had to make the decision to switch this conference to an ‘On-line’ Virtual Conference in the light of uncertainty around the feasibility of large gatherings of people and travel to the venue. We are excited to tell members that the conference will still be packed with excellent content, we will still be able to provide a ‘virtual;’ exhibition hall and poster presentations as well as interactive sessions. In addition, the on-line format will allow UKONS to be more flexible about attendance and attendance fees. I would therefore urge you to keep your diary clear for 19th, 20th and 21st of November as there will be lots going on. We will be providing you with more information on this fantastic and innovative event as time goes on.