"Cancer nursing is in crisis", according to leading charity Macmillan, but it has a £1.7m plan to recruit new specialists in the North East and to help look after patients going through some of the most stressful diagnoses imaginable.
To tackle what it calls a "huge shortage" of cancer nurses in our region, the charity has launched a "workforce development programme" to attract new recruits. This will see 16 jobs created across the North East - including two at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust - which will last for two years and prepare nurses to be fully-fledged cancer specialists at the end of their term.
The roles include shadowing, the opportunity to build up academic skills and to take on research. Northumbria Healthcare's lead cancer nurse Amanda Walshe said she was excited for the new project - which would help create a pipeline of nursing talent. Traditionally, cancer nurse specialists stay in post for many years, which can mean knowledge and experience is lost when they retire - and nationally around one in three specialist nurses are approaching retirement, Macmillan said.
The new scheme is, it is hoped, set to address this. Amanda told ChronicleLive: " This allows nurses to come into post for two years and build up their skills and experience in the area. They will work alongside cancer nurse specialists in their pathways.
"The idea is to give nurses a taste of what the cancer nurse specialist role is and also get them the skills and knowledge so that at the end of the two years they can either get a job as a cancer nurse specialist in the pathway they have been working in, or use those transferrable skills in another pathway. We have never done this before and it's really innovative."
She said the hope was to encourage people who would like to do this kind of - much-needed - job and help them develop. The new roles have been placed in areas where Macmillan and the NHS can see experienced nurses are likely to retire soon.
This comes as, following the pandemic, record numbers of people have come forward with suspected cancer cases. Amanda spoke of the strain this causes - and how more specialist nurses will help patients. She said: "We know that, after Covid, we have more patients coming through cancer pathways and more going through diagnostic tests.
"The majority of those will not have cancer, but we know there is a significant cohort of patients who will do. And so what these nurses will do is they will be able to support patients and the rest of the nursing team at a really critical time. From a patient point of view, this comes as we know we are struggling to attract nurses into cancer care - so we need to think about how we can recruit staff and invest in them to keep them."
42 NHS trusts across the North East and Yorkshire are taking part in the scheme. The charity said that more than half a million people with cancer in the UK (21%) lacked dedicated support, and as a result estimates an extra 2,500 specialist cancer nurses are needed now. By 2030, Macmillan thinks the figure will be 3,700.
Heather McLean, the charity's head of partnerships in the North, said: "Macmillan Cancer Nurse Specialists are the people at the heart of cancer care, this unique role makes a huge difference to people diagnosed with cancer and their families at a very distressing time in their lives.
"There are currently a huge number of specialist cancer nurse vacancies across the North East because it’s increasingly difficult to get people with the right knowledge and skills, who are ready to step into those specialist nursing posts."
To find out more about Macmillan, visit macmillan.org.uk/getinvolved
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