Emerging nursing roles for late effects care for children and young adults with cancer

Annually around 3500 children and young adults are diagnosed with cancer in the UK. While five year childhood cancer survival rates are high, many will experience long-term health problems as a result of their illness and its treatment. Providing late effects services is vital for this group of patients. The skills and expertise needed for nurses working within these services has not been systematically clarified or agreed.

To identify and compare the views of managers and nurses on the ideal and existing role of nurses in the provision of late effects care.

Structured questionnaires were utilised to collect data in two phases. Phase 1 captured the views of 80 health service managers and clinicians on ideal roles; Phase 2 captured the perspectives of 36 nurses in existing roles. Questionnaires were distributed via children, teenage and young adult treatment centres across England, UK. The data were tabulated using descriptive statistics while differences were analysed using chi-squared tests.

The findings identified ideal and actual roles from the perspectives of managers and nurses. Differences were identified in a number of domains. The nurses' role was clinically and patient-care focused, containing fewer elements relating to service development, research or education.

Our work has identified existing and ideal roles for nurses providing late effects services. This information has provided the foundation for the development of a nurse competence framework which has been ratified by the Royal College of Nursing, UK.