Palliative care clinical nurse specialists leading enhanced supportive care in hepatopancreatobiliary cancer.

Background: Integration of care between palliative care and oncology can improve patient outcomes and is increasingly recommended. Enhanced supportive care (ESC), led and delivered by palliative care clinical nurse specialists, is a potential model to achieve this but evidence about it is lacking.

Aim: This research aimed to evaluate a nurse-led integrated ESC model within hepatopancreatobiliary cancer care.

Continuous subcutaneous infusion: is community anticipatory prescribing and administration safe?

Objective: The anticipatory prescribing of pro re nata medications and continuous subcutaneous infusion (CSCI) medication is essential for the timely management of symptomatic patients at the end of life. There is no evidence to support the safety or appropriateness of anticipatory CSCIs. In 2013, in response to safety concerns about end of life prescribing in the community, we designed an educational intervention to improve prescribing practices among non-specialist prescribers in this area.

Multi-professional-delivered enhanced supportive care improves quality of life for patients with incurable cancer.

Background:: Enhanced supportive care (ESC) promotes the earlier implementation of supportive care within cancer care. While earlier supportive care has been demonstrated to improve patient outcomes, the model of delivery is variable. The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre has developed a multi-professional delivered model with clinical nurse specialists providing ongoing patient review and care.