LATEST NEWS

Our Latest News

National Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist Day

15 March 2024

National Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist Day takes place on 15 March 2024.

It's a day to celebrate and highlight everything that the cancer nursing workforce does for patients in the UK-wide health sector every day.

UKONS telephone triage training modules: now live!

19 February 2024

The UKONS telephone triage training modules are now live and are accessible for free on the NHS Learning Hub https://learninghub.nhs.uk 

You don’t need a healthcare email address to register, which means colleagues from third sector and voluntary organisations can access the training for free. Simply visit the UKONS Telephone Triage training programme page on the NHS Learning Hub to register.   

 

Macmillan Launch Cancer Professionals Podcast

18 January 2024

Macmillan’s launch their ‘Cancer Professionals Podcast’ in early January 2024.

Each podcast will feature a range of expert guests, including health and social care professionals, to lift the lid on current issues faced by the cancer workforce.

UKONS Conference Report: Newport 2023

7 December 2023

The 2023 UKONS conference, on the Theme of ‘Lets Integrate Cancer Care’ was held in November 2023 at the ICC Wales, Newport, South Wales. It was the largest UKONS conference ever staged, in terms of the number of attendees (600) the number of sponsors and exhibitors (210) and the number of posters submitted by UKONS members (193). The conference therefore built on the success of UKONS 2022 and event continues to grow and develop.

UKONS Conference 2023 Sees a Change of Board Roles

23 November 2023

Dr Karen Campbell, UKONS President, reflects on the biggest UKONS Conference to date took place at the ICC Wales in Newport over the 17th and 18th of November. This featured more sessions and posters, more attendees and the largest sponsors exhibition the ever before. There will be a full review of the event in the next copy of Breaking News which will be released on 7th December. The conference also featured the UKONS Annual General Meeting where board elections and changes are formally ratified.

Save the Date #UKONS2024

Watch the space...

‘Foundations of Cancer Care’: Free ACCEND E-Learning

12 October 2023

The Aspirant Cancer Career and Education Development programme (ACCEND) have created a suite of e-learning modules, specifically for pre-registration healthcare students, called ‘Foundations of Cancer Care’.  

The Foundations of Cancer Care is available to all those with an NHS or UK university email address, or with an Open Athens account (https://learninghub.nhs.uk/catalogue/ACCEND) .

European Oncology Nursing Conference (EONS16)

EONS Conferences are excellent places to network and compare practice across Europe as well as giving attendees access to ESMO sessions and exhibitions and I would strongly recommend attendance. They also encourage nurses to submit posters under a special ‘Cancer nursing’ category. EONS17 will take place in Barcelona on 14-16 September.

BJN Oncology Nurse of the Year: nominations open

7 November 2023

The UKONS Board are delighted to once again partner with the British Journal of Nursing to support the Oncology Nurse of the Year Award. Please send your nominations for this very competitive award. 

Digital SACT Competency Passport

9 November 2023

After an incredibly busy 2023 working to digitise the UKONS SACT Competency Passport, we’re very pleased to announce that the system is live and rolling out – and the feedback from early users has been fantastic, this is set to be a tremendous resource for all SACT nurses.

To support you and your teams to get going, we have a range of events available to UKONS members – thanks to our sponsors B Braun for making all of these possible.

Next launch event at The Christie School of Oncology, 19th of January 2024 1-4:30 PM

Register here: Digital SACT Passpost Launch - Manchester 

 

Report: 1st launch event, at The Royal Marsden, 18 October 2023

We were delighted to see almost 100 UKONS members from more than 40 different organisations come together to join us for the official launch of the Digital SACT Competency Passport.

The session included information about the history and context of the passport, the digital project, how the questions have been updated. The team also provided a full run-through of the new digital passport – plus a chance to network with colleagues from across the country. 

Thanks to our hosts from The Royal Marsden and Kay Bell for hosting the event. A recording from the event will be made available online soon.

New UKONS Board Members and New President-Elect

17 August 2023

UKONS are pleased to announce the election to the board of two new members Dr Barry Quinn and Dr. Linda Sherwood. Following a board vote, Dr Mary Tanay will replace Dr Karen Campbell as the President-Elect later this year when Karen takes over the UKONS presidency.  

All of the above changes will formally begin following our AGM at our conference in November 2023.

Acute Oncology Initial Management Guidelines - latest version

20 July 2023

UKONS are proud to present the newly updated version 4 of our Acute Oncology Initial Management Guidelines. These guidelines have been reviewed by a multi-disciplinary team, with representation from all four nations and multiple organisations including, UKAOS, UKSB, BOPA, SoR and SAM. Thank you to everyone that provided feedback and contributed to this thorough review. We hope that they will continue to be utilised well within clinical practice and support staff to safely manage patients that require acute cancer care.    

These guidelines relate to the initial assessment and immediate management of Acute Oncology patients, that is, patients presenting with an acute problem, demonstrating symptoms deemed as having been caused by:

  • Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT)
  • Radiotherapy
  • Malignant disease
  • A previously undiagnosed cancer where an urgent oncology/haematology assessment is required.

It is emphasised that these guidelines focus on initial assessment at presentation and management for the first 24 hours.

Version 4 of our acute oncology initial management guidelines are now live and free to access to all UKONS members on the UKONS Website here via the Acute Oncology Members Interest Group (MIG) resource page.

The Fruit Fly Collective: ‘PARENTING WITH CANCER’ Project

10 July 2023

The Fruit-fly Collective has a small core team of scientists, clinicians, artists and designers who collaborate with a range of experts.  Their collaborators include nurses, scientific researchers, visual artists, medics, photographers, clinical psychologists, palliative care social workers, children and young people, and people who have been affected by cancer. Their main aim is to build new ways to support children, adults and families affected by cancer through creativity, education, research and communication. 
 

UKONS Sessions at ISNCC Conference and UKONS Discount

UKONS are proud to be welcoming the ISNCC to Glasgow for ICCN2023

May 18: UKONS is national society host for ECND23 and welcomes EONS colleagues

16 May 2023

UKONS President, Mark Foulkes, tweets: "The UKONS Board and the UK are hosting ECND23 in Scotland for the first time in many years. I think this gives an important message about the importance of UK cancer nursing in Europe and the strength across our four nations."

UKONS appoints new set of YECCN Co-chairs

5 May 2023

Following a call for nominations, UKONS are thrilled to announce that we have appointed three co-chairs, Debora Franchini and Sophie Maycock, to represent the views of young cancer nurses or those who are early in their oncology careers.

British Journal of Nursing Oncology Nurse of the Year Award 2023

24 March 2023

The UKONS Board were delighted to once again partner with the British Journal of Nursing to support the Oncology Nurse of the Year Award. Well done to all the nominees who entered submissions for this very competitive award.

PeCAN Study - UK potential occupational exposure to cytotoxic drugs and use of personal protection equipment Survey

This is a UKONS funded project by Edinburgh Napier University to generate evidence on the current potential occupational exposure to cytotoxic drugs and use of personal protection equipment in the UK.

 

Health Education England launches ACCEND career pathway

27 January 2023

HEE has now launched the ACCEND career pathway, core capabilities in practice (CiP) and education framework for those providing care to people affected by cancer.

UKONS Annual Conference 2024

15 - 16 November 2023