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European Oncology Nursing Society vzw / asbl

EONS

European Oncology Nursing Society The European Oncology Nursing Society vzw / asbl (EONS) is a Belgium registered pan-European not-for-profit membership organisation for cancer nurses with a current membership of almost 28,000 cancer nurses from all over Europe, the largest group of healthcare workers in the oncology workforce. EONS provides leadership in all areas of cancer nursing: research, practice, continuing education, communications and advocacy for better recognition of cancer nursing across Europe. Our vision is that cancer nursing will be recognised by the cancer community, national and European level policy makers, as a profession with specialised training and qualifications available across the continent. Our mission is to ensure that all people affected by cancer benefit from the care of highly educated, well-informed and competent cancer nurses.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan

3 Mar 2020

The EU’s Beating Cancer Plan needs to be comprehensive and reflecting existing best practice national level cancer plans. The plan should avoid generic terms such as ‘people from all walks of live’ and be more age-specific to highlight the differences between the generations such as ‘children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults and older adults’. Likewise, use the term ‘survivors’ rather than former patients. We agree that EU action can make a difference. Problems caused by cancer and it’s treatments both need to be taken into account, including the many side effects treatment. In addition, the CP needs to recognise that cancer causes an array of symptoms including economic, physical, emotional, psycho-social, spiritual and emotional pain and distress. Inequalities exist in access to prevention, screening diagnosis, treatment and quality cancer care, and all EU citizens should be protected, helped and supported equitably. Health policy’s emphasis on treatment certainly limits successes in preventing and properly treating cancer. Improvements need to be made in primary prevention at legislative (i.e. tobacco and alcohol control), personal and organizational levels. These measures should also include awareness campaigns and health promotion for minority groups such as adolescents and young adults and rare cancers. Emphasis on treatment should always be combined with the quality of care, bringing in the human side of the impact of healthcare services on cancer recovery. Too much is unknown about the quality and efficacy of current occupational and patient safety measures. What levels of exposure to hazardous drugs are cancer nurses, pharmacists, hospital cleaning staff, patients and their carers open to? What are the best ways to prevent harm to these individuals’ reproductive health or prevention of long- term cancer incidence? How can the EU’s precautionary principle be best applied for patient safety and cancer workforce protection? Solid research including all affected cancer work force professionals is needed in this area. Uneven access to availability of care needs to be clarified and addressed. Within the care continuum, Europe needs to address inequalities in care such as uneven access to essential nutritional products for patients undergoing chemotherapy, ensuring a good patient to cancer nurse or oncologist ratio, ensuring good levels of knowledge of cancer treatments in care in primary settings. EONS welcome the recognition of cancer specialists and asks the Cancer Plan Roadmap outline how these can be addressed within the Professional Qualifications Directive to ensure that all cancer specialists: nurses, surgeons and pharmacists for example, be given the same level of recognition and compulsory education as medical oncologists. Care provided to cancer patients should be based on a multi-professional model throughout the cancer continuum. Multi-professional teamworking starts in the educational system where training to work together can result in multi-professional care models in cancer care and survivorship. General shortages of healthcare workers and training discrepancies need to be addressed with long term solutions such as better training and professionalization. They cannot be compensated for by reducing specialization and putting health workforce and patient safety at risk. The length of time between diagnosis and treatment in adolescents and young adults, also needs to be included through including measures in the digital area to reach and treat these groups. The objective of the European Cancer Plan also needs to include successes in prevention, cancer treatment, care and survivorship services.The possible instruments include working in line with the planned pharmaceutical and chemical strategies as well as Horizon Europe could facilitate access to high quality treatment and related evidence-based care.
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Meeting with Stella Kyriakides (Commissioner) and

20 Jan 2020 · Discussion on cancer