UK Acute Oncology Society (UKAOS) Nurses group
Chair – Alison Taylor – Acute Oncology Nurse Consultant.
The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Nurses make up the majority of the UKAOS membership (in December 2023 there were 453 nurse members – 65% of UKAOS membership) they are a very active group within the AO community and have been key in driving change and service development since AO was established in 2009. It was felt that a nurses group was key for the society to ensure nurses’ voices are heard and actioned within the society.
I was privileged to be asked to chair this group, however, with so much other excellent work being done nationally by AO nurses, it felt that the best direction was to work in collaboration with existing groups such as UKONS, and especially the UKONS AO Members Interest Group (MIG) instead of setting up new working groups focussing on the same or similar projects. The UKAOS board agreed that is the best way forwards to ensure joint working and collaboration across the four nations. Therefore, discussions were held with UKONS and it was agreed, that there will be a nursing seat from the UKAOS on the UKONS MIG. This way there is joint working.
So far, this collaboration has ensured there has been UKAOS memberships as part of key work streams such as the UKONS AO management guidelines review and the UKONS triage tool review. As the Nurses group chair I can feed this work back into the UKAOS as multi-professional society.
Nurses have been key in providing education and training we have had UKAOS nursing representatives speaking at national conferences including:
- The UK Oncology Forum 2023
- UK Oncology Nursing Society (UKONS) conference 2023
- Ambulatory Emergency Care conference 2022
- Advancing Clinical Practice (ACP) conference 2023
There is UKAOS nursing group representation on national forums, such as the UK AO education project, the national AO data group and Macmillan AO working group - with their key message for AO -see it, say it, share it.
Whilst there are differences in the delivery of AO services across the 4 nations, nurses are fundamental to the delivery and improvement of these services. UKAOS is committed to ensuring nurses voices within AO are heard, and the as the nurses group chair I welcome any members to contact me with thoughts and ideas. We hope the resources within the website may help you with service improvement and challenges you may have come across. The AO nursing network is very strong so please follow us on X (Twitter) and make contact with other nurses. If you want to become more actively involved in any of the national work please contact us using the contact form on the UK AOS website.