First prize for national lung cancer project
Congratulations to one of our nurses, Jennifer Ross, who won first prize for a national project presented at the British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) annual conference in January.
Jennifer, who works as a Lung Cancer Advanced Nurse Practitioner at St George’s, worked on the project with a team of seventeen nurses who carry out the same role across England and Wales.
The project was a qualitative research study analysing the role of the lung cancer nurse specialist – and it came an incredible first out of 225 submissions!
Following changes to national guidance for the pathway of patients with lung cancer, the team focused the project on the role of the lung cancer nurse specialist pre-diagnosis.
Jennifer said: “The changes to the guidance mean patients now meet a lung cancer nurse specialist before they’ve been diagnosed. This has had a significant impact on our role and ways of working.”
“The project analysed what should happen in this initial meeting to ensure these patients are receiving the right care.”
The project was first presented at the Lung Cancer Nursing UK annual conference in November 2019, which is where it was recommended it be put forward for presentation at the BTOG conference.
Jennifer continued: “These initial meetings allow you to build a better relationship with the patient and give them the support they need from day one. Before the changes to our role were made, patients only received support once they’d received a formal diagnosis.
“What is particularly impressive about this award is it was achieved by sixteen people from different NHS Trusts working together nationally – this doesn’t happen often.
“It was a great opportunity to be involved in this type of research, and to find out about best practice elsewhere across the country.
“This project has hopefully raised awareness of the work that we are doing at St George’s to try and improve the care for our patients.”
The project poster is available to download and view here.
