Personalised care Resources

How fortunate we are to have specialist teams and services that provide wound care across the UK. But, these teams and services are frequently overwhelmed. Even in pre-pandemic times, increasing referrals, rising caseloads, and the complexities of supporting people with multiple morbidities conspire to challenge service delivery (Guest et al, 2020). At the same time, an over reliance on these teams’ skills by the rest of the system gives rise to the de-skilling of some groups, while inhibiting fundamental wound care skills development in others.

Cancer survival rates are increasing, resulting in more people living with treatment or disease-related side-effects. Cancer is now considered to be a long-term condition and patients can present with a wide range of physical, psychological and social needs. Community nurses often see people living with or after cancer, but are not always recognised as part of the cancer workforce. This article outlines a pilot of a ‘cancer in the community’ four-day teaching module for community nurses in South West London. The conclusion and recommendations make the case for community nurses to receive education on cancer as a long-term condition and highlight key learning points from the pilot.