Hi, I’m Pam. I work 1.5 days per week with the Right By You Wessex team and the remaining 3 days as a cancer care Practice Nurse in Primary Care.

My PN role is with patients registered at the GP surgery with a cancer diagnosis. I am involved at point of diagnosis and offer support throughout treatment and life beyond for the patient, care givers and families. I complete both the 3 and 12 month cancer care reviews ( CCR’s ) and liaise with Secondary Care to enable effective and timely communications for both patients and clinicians.  My RBY role gives me the opportunity to blend both work families and encourage PN’s to better understand the needs of people living with cancer and to be skilled and competent to undertake CCR’s.

By offering bespoke mentorship, either virtually or face to face, the learning can be individually tailored around specific training needs and can be supported with a learning portfolio. We can share learning via the Community of Practice platform and this can offer ongoing support once the PN feels mentorship has met their needs.

If you feel you would like to take up this offer of mentorship then please contact me: pamkay@nhs.net.

Testimonial

Lisa Lucas – practice nurse lead

I undertook the MacMillan Cancer course for Practice Nurses in 2016, but only started completing Cancer Care Reviews in September last year (2021).  Although I was comfortable talking to cancer patients, for example when giving Zoladex injections or taking monitoring bloods, I felt I needed some extra support so contacted Pam Kay, who works for Wessex Cancer Alliance.

She has been fantastic, mentoring me since September – she comes into the surgery and is always available via email.  She has provided a wealth of knowledge and has shared all her contacts with me.

Pam informed me of Right By You, a service I have referred several patients into.  They have been excellent and send me regular updates about patients.  I am in regular contact with the whole team, especially Amanda.  She contacts me with prescription queries which I am able to sort out without the patient having to see their GP.  This has saved many face to face or telephone appointments with the Doctors.

RBY have been a great source of information.  We were asked by a consultant neurologist to refer a cancer patient for psychological therapy for PTSD and neurological syndrome.  As I wasn’t sure where to refer this patient, I contacted the RBY team and Amanda has now referred her to the psychologist at Maggie’s Centre.

I have been doing CCR’s for 9 months and feel a lot more confident now with everyone’s help.  One of my first visits back in October, was to an elderly gentleman who had declined chemotherapy for myeloma.  After spending some time with him explaining his diagnosis and potential treatment, he told me the reason he had declined was that he didn’t want to stay overnight in hospital leaving his wife at home, as she was unwell.  I explained that he wouldn’t need to stay in hospital and that he could have chemo at home.  I was able to organise this for him with help from his CNS.

I also follow up patients who are given steroids as part of their cancer treatment.  I am the diabetic lead nurse at the surgery and am happy to initiate or titrate insulin.  Before doing the CCR’s, I wouldn’t have been aware of any patients on steroids.  I am also being forwarded all oncology letters and keep the surgery updated on new cancer patients or any information from the hospital about their treatment via a spreadsheet which I print off weekly and display on the whiteboard.

Community of Practice

Community of Practice was established by the staff involved in delivering the Right By You service as a platform for shared learning.

Its purpose is to:

• provide a platform for professional discussion of patients living with and beyond cancer and for challenging case studies.
• enhance an integrated approach to patient care.
• develop a framework for working as critical friends to problem solve and a professional support structure.
• highlight training needs.

Our aim is to have an interactive and relevant agenda for dual learning and proposed outcomes of lessons learnt framework and a support directory.

The group currently has members from the RBY Southampton and Dorset clinical team and Practice Nurses within RBY localities with the intention to expand to other specialities as the service develops.

The group currently meets on alternate months via Microsoft Teams. The group is a new development for 2022 and to date, have had two meetings.

If you would like to join our CofP then please contact pamkay@nhs.net

Terms of Reference for the group