UKONS 2016 | Living with melanoma programme

Kate Ford, Nurse Specialist, of Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, discusses session structure and content of ‘Living with melanoma programme’. The sessions are run three times a year, and run for two hours at a local community centre setting. There has been financial support with the cancer rehabilitation project, which is a part of Macmillan, helping to provide the room and make patients feel at ease and to provide a very informal, friendly atmosphere. To run the sessions, there is also support from the clinic’s skin multi-disciplinary team including: psychologists and plastic surgeons. Patients are sent an invitation and the contents of the session include: how to prevent further skin cancers, health promotion, what to look for on your skin and also how to check your lymph glands. Ms. Ford mentions the clinic having props which people can for example feel what it would be like feel their lymph if they could feel their lymph glands. The clinical psychologist runs the final session which is about anxieties related to having a diagnosis of melanoma. Following this session, patients can ask questions and have a discussion amongst specialists. Further, patients are asked to evaluate the session, any comments contribute to adapting future sessions accordingly. Recorded at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), held in Brighton, UK.