14 March 2025 is National Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) Day!
To celebrate, we met with Lyndsay, paediatric neuro-oncology clinical nurse specialist.
"In my role, I have the opportunity to build up strong trusting relationships with the children and families on my caseload, it is always a privilege and humbling to care for children and their families, it never ceases to amaze me how resilient children and families can be when faced with the life changing diagnosis of a brain tumour."
I am able to make this very difficult time at least a little easier.
"I attend our clinic and ward round meetings in the morning, I will then see my patients who are here for chemotherapy, clinical review or scans, and also see patients who are an on the ward.
"We cover a large geographical area so I also spend a fair amount of time talking with shared care centres and community teams to ensure that the children are safely cared for at home, and have access to all the support that they need locally. I also arrange any investigations needed to monitor for potential side effects of treatment in order for the children to continue their planned treatment.
"I also talk with schools to ensure that children are able to continue their education during and after treatment, and that they are well supported in doing this, with the families having the confidence that the school has all the information needed to be able to have their child safely at school."
"On our children's oncology ward and day unit, we have an end of treatment bell for patients, this is something that children can choose to ring to mark the end of their treatment if they and their families wish.
"The child and their family can decide if, and when, they would like to acknowledge and often celebrate the end of their treatment. I have had patients choose to ring the bell after their last chemotherapy, after their first scan after completion of treatment, some after the end of intensive inpatient chemotherapy before outpatient treatment, and some when there are no further treatment options for them but they want to be able to ring the bell at this time.
"Our teams make a real effort to ensure that every child and their family are made to feel special when they ring the bell. We gather nurses, doctors, healthcare assistants, play specialists, the ward cook, admin staff, allied health professionals and other members of multi-professional teams around the bell to support and honour the occasion with the child and their family.
Sharing this occasion is a very special time and often the family will share some words about their child’s cancer treatment and what the support from the team around them has meant to them. This is very rewarding to hear and reinforces the importance of the roles we all have in the treatment of children with cancer.