Education in Europe: are cancer nurses ready for the future?

Much has been written about the need for continuing professional development for nurses to enhance practice and promote quality-nursing care. However, little has been written about the challenges faced by European nurses in keeping up-to-date with health care developments in relation to specialist areas. Educators providing courses are currently facing many challenges; not only the increasing costs of specialist education provision, distance learning, but also the ever increasing changes in health care requiring modification of specialist nursing skills and knowledge within curriculum. This means that educators need to rethink approaches to teaching and learning and links with practice. One of the challenges for the future is how to shift the skills needed for support of cancer patients out into the community , providing quality care for those requiring outpatient and ambulatory cancer care provision. However, continuing professional development is often encouraged as a mechanism for delivering service training rather perceived as developmental for the individual. The European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS) as a society has grasped the initiative for educational development with educational needs analysis, a curriculum identifying practice as central to learning, practice-related topics such as TITAN and the development of education for cancer in older people. There are enormous possibilities opening up within health care for us to develop cancer nursing in many settings and contexts, not only as a result of improved survival and treatments but because vocational education is being scrutinised as part of the Bologna agreement. Lastly, educationalists need to grasp these opportunities and take the initiative and strengthen education for nurses who don't know they need it. Improvements in specialist cancer care are shared and lessons learnt can translate into other nursing services so that we can provide better care for cancer patients throughout their cancer journey.