Team who are committed to enhancing cancer care services featured in national publication

By Emma Harnett,

Macmillan cancer education lead nurse for Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board

One Step at a Time (OSAAT) started with a conversation over a cup of tea with Ann Nutt, chair of the Patient Panel at PAHT, sharing my experience of cancer, and the need to keep information simple, in language that everyone understands. A further meeting with Shahid Sardar, associate director of patient engagement and experience at PAHT, was pivotal. Together we created our first video, which detailed my own experience as a nurse, and how cancer can affect anyone, at any time.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do, nothing can prepare you for being diagnosed with cancer. The key to getting through a diagnosis is the support you receive.

Soon, more people joined the initiative to share their lived experiences. We are a group of like-minded people, but from very different backgrounds, with a vision to amplify the patient voice. Our mission statement is simply, ‘cancer information produced by patients, for patients'.

In October 2022, we were proud to win the Team of the Year category at The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Awards, in recognition of our work to promote the patient voice (pictured, from left to right, me, Ann Nutt and Shahid Sardar).

We have now been featured in the Nursing Standardcharting my own cancer journey and our drive as a team to improve the experience of those affected by cancer and their loved ones. This was a fantastic opportunity for us to be a part of and I would encourage everyone to take a look.

We also held a cancer conference at Harlow Rugby Club on 9 March, which was well attended and extremely well received. Topics covered included receiving a cancer diagnosis, caring for someone with cancer, and finding local support.

Our website now features a variety of patients sharing their stories, with information from family members on what it feels like when a loved one is diagnosed with cancer. We are helping to address health inequalities in our health system, with better representation of our wider community.

Working in conjunction with the Cancer Alliance, we have had the original video translated into five additional languages, those most widely spoken after English within West Essex: Romanian, Urdu, Polish, Italian and Punjabi.

We believe the key to our success is working collaboratively and for everyone’s voice to be heard.

You can read the full article in the Nursing Standard here >

For more information, please refer to our website > You can also contact me at e.harnett@nhs.net