Countdown to London 2020 – Episode 4 ‘Standardizing Chemotherapy Education: The UKONS SACT Competence Passport’

Mark Foulkes RGN, BSc (Hons), MSc (Nurse Consultant and Macmillan Lead Cancer Nurse – Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust)

Welcome to my latest blog in the run up to the ICCN 2020 in London, where I am giving our international guests a flavour of the main issues in UK oncology nursing. 

“In line with many other countries, here in the UK we are experiencing increased demand for the delivery of SACT (Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapies) as the number of agents available becomes larger and more lines of therapy for patients with a cancer diagnosis are possible.”

This puts increasing demand upon our chemotherapy nurses and the skills that they need to utilise to keep patients safe. As a board member of the UK Oncology Nursing Society (UKONS) one of our proudest and most important achievements has been the development and implementation of thin e UKONS SACT Competence Passport (the Passport). This project has been led by Dr Catherine Oakley, Past President of UKONS and Chemotherapy Nurse Consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’, London and received funding support from the Capital Nurse programme. The Passport is a patient-centered assessment document that ensures SACT clinicians demonstrate knowledge and skills to safely and autonomously administer SACT and care for patients receiving SACT.

Historically there was considerable variation in the way chemotherapy nurses were trained to administer SACT and frequently nurses in the UK had to repeat local training programmes when they changed employer. Since 2017, the Passport has been implemented in SACT-provider healthcare organisations throughout the UK, supported by ‘UKONS Train-the-Trainer’ workshops.

In addition to the Passport, Dr Verna Lavender, UKONS President and Head of Guy’s Cancer Academy, published the UKONS SACT Competence Learning Outcomes Framework (the Framework) with Dr Oakley. The Framework is fully aligned to the Passport and was adopted by the National Health Service (NHS) in England in February 2019, so that on successful completion of the Passport clinicians working in the NHS can be added to the national SACT competence register. This allows SACT competent nurses to move between employers without needing to re-train. If you have registered or plan to register for ICCN 2020, and you wish to know more about teaching and assessment of SACT theory and practice in the UK, you can register to attend the UKONS Pre-Conference Program on 28 March 2020, which is free to ICCN2020 delegates.  This full-day session is entitled ‘Standardising Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy and Acute Oncology’ and will have a focus on the standardization of cancer services including sessions on the UKONS SACT Competence Passport and learning Outcomes Framework. 

If you have registered or plan to register for ICCN 2020, and you wish to know more about teaching and assessment of SACT theory and practice in the UK, you can register to attend the UKONS Pre-Conference Program on 28 March 2020, which is free to ICCN 2020 delegates.  This full-day session is entitled ‘Standardising Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy and Acute Oncology’ and will have a focus on the standardization of cancer services including sessions on the UKONS SACT Competence Passport and learning Outcomes Framework.  For more details, please visit the ICCN website. The UKONS SACT Competence Passport can be accessed here.

The UKONS SACT Competence Learning Outcomes framework accessed via the UKONS Website on the ‘SACT MIG pages’.