In cancer care, nurses provide education, research, leadership and management.  Nurses should be aware of current treatments and assisting patients to make informed decisions about screening, prevention clinical trials, increasingly complex therapies and ongoing survivorship support.  How do we raise awareness of the critical role of nursing in cancer care and improve patient outcomes?  And how to we shape future health care services and be seen and be heard within New Zealand and beyond?

Nurses need to be conscious of new ways of working within the tight financial constraints at the current time.  This is a time for change and innovation in the provision of cancer care, with shifting boundaries of nursing roles, the development of specialist roles and potential oncology nurses practitioners, assisting generalist nurses, raising awareness, and providing leadership and valuable support through research evidence, and contribution in decreasing the burden of cancer.

How can we ensure nurses have access to education and research in oncology nursing in order to provide quality care of cancer patients and their families?

NZNO Nurses’ Day is an opportunity to have an interchange of experiences and knowledge with colleagues nationally and overseas.  To this end it is with great pleasure that we have speakers from New Zealand who will share their practice and expertise in their field of cancer nursing, and also our delight at having Gayle Jameson, Nurse Practitioner from The Translational  Genomics Research Institute, Scottsdale,  Arizona to give our principal address .  Gayle is also Senior Investigator, collaborating on clinical trials.  She has a wealth of oncology nursing knowledge and will show us ways to move to the next level in cancer nursing, promoting a higher standard of practice, encouraging involvement in research and action, engaging with colleagues, and advocating for improved patient care and support.

I look forward to seeing you at the conference in May.

Noelle Farrell
Convenor, Nurses Programme
NoelleF@adhb.govt.nz


The Nurses' programme will take place on Tuesday 4 May at the Langham Hotel, running concurrently within the New Zealand Society for Oncology programme.