Acute Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist

The Acute Oncology Service (AOS) provides expert advice, support and leadership within Whittington Health, ensuring patients presenting with oncological concerns are provided with safe and effective care.

The post holder will work in partnership with clinical colleagues in oncology including the chemotherapy team, palliative care, acute medicine, A & E, radiology and pathology to ensure high quality continuity of care to patients with a cancer diagnosis and those suspected of having cancer requiring urgent interventions and care for complication of cancer and its treatment.

The Post holder will work be a core member of the AOS providing specialty oncology care within both the inpatient and outpatient setting for patients presenting with:

Oncological emergencies

Complications of cancer treatment

Complications of cancer diagnosis

A new cancer diagnosis

The post holder will work within the multidisciplinary team ensuring patients who present on the malignancy of unknown origin (MUO) and cancer of unknown primary (CUP) pathways have access to rapid oncology input to avoid any unnecessary, inappropriate investigations, discussed through the CUP MDT and receive appropriate rapid treatment for their disease.

The AOS support the teenage and young adult (TYA) cancer pathways and provide cross cover for the lone working oncology clinical nurse specialist services within the Trust.

Main duties of the job

Professional / Clinical

The post holder will enable faster and better care of patients with complications of cancer through early recognition, better treatment and rapid referrals to specialist cancer teams, palliative care team or tertiary centres where appropriate.

The post holder will be a nurse with experience of working in oncology, cancer, SACT or palliative care.

Work as an autonomous practitioner assessing potentially highly complex patients, providing specialist support, advice and information and interventions, taking into account holistic needs, to patients with suspected anti-cancer treatment or disease complications within the hospital environment, both in-patient and out-patient, or telephone assessment of patients at home.

Monitor investigation results, initiating and escalating further assessment/review of treatment pathway as required.

Prioritise, assess and review patients according to their needs. Identifying patients requiring consultant review and/or escalating clinical decisions appropriately.

They will use clinical expertise, evidence-based research and clinical guidelines to support valid clinical judgement.

Uses advanced communication, listening and negotiation skills to facilitate discussion of highly complex, sensitive and emotive issues around cancer diagnosis, disease management, recurrence/progressive disease and prognosis.

Accountable for own actions in accordance with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct.

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trustbelieves that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.