Professional education for the cancer care nurse in England and Wales: a review of the evidence base.
The third European Commission action plan to combat cancer recognized the need to develop effective continuing and in-service training programmes for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. A literature review and course documentary analysis commissioned by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting Education (ENB) in 1997 found that, within their initial training, nurses in England and Wales are seldom adequately prepared to work with cancer sufferers; that very few nurses undertake subsequent specialist training in cancer care; that up to half the places available on specialist training programmes remain unfilled at any one time; and that, 3 months after such training, studies showed that competence has again decreased. As post-qualifying continuing and in-service education for nurses in their specialist areas is not yet mandatory in the UK, it is unlikely that the objectives of the European Commission's third action plan or those of successive British governments, in successfully combating cancer, will be achieved.